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TechnoratiHopegivers International, a ministry founded in the northwestern Indian state, is close to reaching its goal of providing homes for 10,000 orphaned and abandoned children in India by Dec. 31, 2005. Although more than two months remain in the year, Hopegivers is already caring for 8,958 children among its 87 orphanages throughout India.
Dr. Samuel Thomas (Photo: Hopegivers International)
Dr. Samuel Thomas, who was involved in a recent anti-conversion bill proposal in Rajasthan and the recent Indian Supreme Court hearing on equal rights for Dalit Christians, currently serves as president of Hopegivers International. “Dr. Sam” – as he prefers to be called – also has extensive experience with Christian persecution in India, having faced personal assassination threats and witnessed the martyring of Hopegivers staff while spreading the Gospel in India.
In an interview on Oct. 17 with The Christian Post, Dr. Sam discussed the ministries and missions of Hopegivers International in relation to the recent religious legal debates and conflicts that have brought to light in India. The following are excerpts taken from the interview:
I know that one of Hopegivers ministries is Christian orphanages. What are the names of some of the orphanages and where are they located?
New Delhi is the name of one orphanage and it is located in the city of Chawala. Then the biggest one with over 2,300 students is located in Raibura, outside the city limits of Kota, in the state of Rajasthan.
How is Hopegivers orphanages different than other orphanages or children ministries?
What differentiate Hopegivers from any other ministry is that we are not an organization that goes into the communities of India or communities of the world and just goes into the ghettos and slums and have a 2 hour educational program everyday. We don’t just give them cookies, crackers, soup, or porridge with all the vitamins and then send them back to the ghettos, back to the streets. We don’t do that. We literally rescue the children and bring them on campus; we have dorms for them; we take care of them seven days a week 24 hours a day. So this is not an environment where they go back to the world, then come back for an education and to the Lord and then go back again. No, we really nurture them physically and spiritually.
Also, the big thing about Hopegivers is that we bring hope from the inside out. What that means is that we don’t have the foreign missionaries of any nation going into another nation and staying there and trying to bring hope from the outside in. We encourage the indigenous, native children, the children who know the culture, the taste, the smell to become the leaders.
When do the children enter the orphanages and how are they educated?
We have children who come to the orphanages from when they are 30 minutes old to children who enter the orphanages at the age of 14. Now why 14? We actually limit the age to 10 because after 10 they already have bad habits and we don’t have the finances to do all the rehab.
So most of the children are what I like to call “pre-Christians” rather than “non-Christians.” I like to claim the children as Christians with faith. So regardless of the religious background of the child – Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, or Atheism – the child has been orphaned and abandoned and someone has brought him/her to our orphanage. Continue »
