A Family Reflects on Changes at the Compassion Home

June 25, 2007

By Glenn Horning, former Compassion Home Director

The Glenn Horning family has just returned home after serving two years in Chiang Mai, Thailand. They were responsible for overseeing the Compassion Home. Glenn shares his observations of the past two years.

Almost twenty-six months have passed since our family arrived in Thailand. As we prepare to return to the states I was thinking about the changes that have taken place at the Compassion Home since April 2005. So much has happened there in the last two years it’s hard to know where to begin. At that time there were forty-one children living at Compassion Home. Mary Beachy and Kylie Yoder were just getting moved into a small house nearby and trying to learn the language and the children’s names. They took take turns staying at the Home, transporting the children to school and supervising the girl's dorm. There was no one looking after the boy’s dorm.

That changed when Jin arrived at the Compassion Home. He was a young, Hmong man who had just completed Bible School and agreed to work at the Compassion Home for a year. I was amazed at how fast he had learned each of the children’s names and how well he related to them. I'm not sure why I was amazed since they spoke the same language and were from the same culture. Unfortunately, the year passed all too quickly, and we had to say goodbye to Jin as he went on to work as an evangelist to the hill tribes in northern Thailand.

After observing how well Jin interacted with the children of the Compassion Home we decided to look for a young Thai or tribal guy and girl to replace Mary and Kylie when their two-year term with GTO was completed. Mary and Kylie’s term ended in early Spring 2007. It was sad to see them go. Thankfully, the Lord provided Git and Nit. They arrived in May just before the children returned for the new school year. They are both young Christians from the Lahu tribe and finished several years of Bible School. In some ways they cannot replace having girls from the states at the home, but they can relate to the children far better than a foreigner can.

Over the two years we have been here, the number of children slowly dropped from forty-one. Today there are less than thirty of those original children living at the Home. Some got tired of school, others moved out of the area with their families and some were simply homesick. Because of that we began looking for some younger children to fill the empty beds. When the new school year began a few weeks ago there were twelve new faces at the Compassion Home. Five of them belonged to boys and the other seven were girls. Most of them are between seven and nine years old.

Other changes at the Compassion Home go beyond children and personnel. Two years ago we were talking about ways to raise money and cut costs. Funds were in short supply because of inflation and a weak US dollar. Today, we have two large vegetable gardens, a mushroom house, a chicken coop and two fishponds. We also raised three pigs at the Compassion Home last year. The vegetables, mushrooms, eggs, and fish provide food for the Home; any excess are sold in the surrounding community. Not only do these projects provide food and some income for the Home, but it also teaches the children important life skills. They plant and take care of the gardens. They feed the chickens and gather the eggs. They make pig food from banana trees and other vegetation. They take the excess mushrooms and vegetables around the community to sell them.

We thank God for having had the opportunity to be part of the Compassion Home for the past two years. We are thankful for His protecting hand upon it. The children and the staff at the Compassion Home have a special place in our hearts. We will miss Decha and his wife Pat who oversee the Home. We will miss De, the cook. And we will certainly miss the children who always seem to have a smile on their face.