CHILDREN’S HOMES IN THAILAND: FIVE CONSIDERATIONS

The fact that North Thailand is filled with hostels and student homes is evidence that many recognize the need for spiritual and educational development of children. These efforts provide valuable object lessons which can help concerned Christians make informed decisions about how to minister to children more effectively. I am concerned when I see that many simply imitate the old models rather than analyzing their effectiveness in order to improve them. It is my desire to help more churches and missions partners re-evaluate their current commitments towards such ministries and consider the important question: “What next?”

There are danger signs showing that what used to be a model for Christian discipleship and missions has been carelessly ‘copied and pasted’ in Thailand. Land buying and building projects through huge investments of money (mostly from overseas) are going ahead without equal attention expended on the purpose, results and consequences in the Thai context, demographics and society. In a generation where foundational social structures are constantly being challenged and redefined, the bonds of ‘marriage’ and ‘family’ are key areas for Christian discipleship and missions. Therefore, any Christian hostel or children’s home ministry in Thailand must responsibly put thought into safeguarding and building up these key areas with clarity and integrity.

For years now, major humanitarian organizations have stopped supporting the model of institutionalizing children, because of the results from research and observations on the well-being and development of children in such a context. Christian ministries are sorely lagging behind in ‘research and review’ when it comes to missions involvement with children.

Below I put forward five considerations for rethinking Christian hostel or children’s home ministry in Thailand. (From here the use of ‘hostels’ will also mean any children’s home-related ministry.)

1. Hostels Are Not Orphanages 

Not all hostels are actually orphanages or homes for at-risk children. I am not unfavorable towards such a specialized ministry. My concern is towards ministries which house children with the simplistic purpose of ‘giving them a better life’.

Many of the children I speak to in hostels are not orphans without both parents. The majority still have their parents. They do visit their parents and relatives during the school holidays. Why then are they in a Christian hostel?

a hostel ministry set up to meet the problem of broken families is in return very much an inducement for parents to neglect their roles and commitments

One recurring reason I have heard is that their parents are unable to care for them. Either one or both are too poor, or are working in another province, or have chosen to leave the child behind with a relative or grandparent. In response to these family challenges, these children are taken and put in a hostel to have a ‘better life’. Other times, I have heard that these children are moved into a hostel mainly for the opportunity of a better education. Receiving education will help them to have a ‘better life’.

I am not against a ‘better life’ for children. But have we considered the effects of what we are doing? Are hostel ministries the only answer to these challenges? Are there better responses to these chronic family challenges in Thailand? One prominent effect of a hostel ministry is that children get drawn away from the family nucleus from the time they are young. Even if the reason was a better education, the child as a result loses out on the reality of growing up in a Thai family. The parents are also given a good reason to set aside their responsibilities as primary caregivers to their children because someone else is doing that for them. Thus, they have the opportunity and freedom to find work elsewhere in Thailand. With the increasing growth of hostel ministries in Thailand, could this not have become a viable option seriously considered by young parents? The irony is that a hostel ministry set up to meet the problem of broken families is in return very much an inducement for parents to neglect their roles and commitments, breaking up the family nucleus.

2. Wrong Reward System 

Hostel ministries unknowingly reward the breakup of the family because only children from such families are considered for a ‘better life and education’. Families that decide to stay and struggle together are not given the opportunities for a ‘better life and education’ because they want to keep the family intact!

Families that decide to stay and struggle together are not given the opportunities for a ‘better life and education’ because they want to keep the family intact!

Consequently, the better a hostel ministry is run, the more detrimental its effects on the children’s mindset regarding family responsibilities. To these children, growing up in a hostel is a good thing and they too want their kids to receive such a good life and education. I have spoken with a handful of adults that grew up in a Christian hostel setting since childhood. Many of them have no hesitation in sending their children to hostels to be cared and provided for. But while many hostel ministries would tell me that their aim is to exemplify the Christian family and model of parenting, it seems like there is a disconnection between the givers and the receivers. Instead of being prepared and equipped for parenting and raising a family, the young parents whom I have dialogued with, who have been through a Christian hostel, actually feel inadequate to care for their own children. They seem to lack a key ingredient, which is perseverance through commitment. Because they have been brought up in a hostel, they eventually become parents who choose to send their own kids to hostels because raising a family is just too difficult. They would rather live on their own and work hard to financially support their children and hand over the responsibility to Christian hostels to raise their children. Hostel ministries are working on a wrong reward system that is plaguing the development and nurture of young parents for future Thai generations.

3. Isolation Within Communities

Many hostel ministries are either too isolated from the community or careless about developing relationships within the community.

In Thailand, community and relationships are everything. All hostel ministries are set up in a community, either in a more established city or township. Most ministries move into a new and unfamiliar village or community that they have no relationships with. Some are far away from the communities and villages where most of the children are from. Walled up, fenced in, with little or no interaction with the community they are in, the hostel takes a life of its own behind the walls. Villagers and communities where these hostel ministries are at are thus not eager to help the kids, because they don’t know the ministry and the kids are not ‘one of them’. The community is wary of the new establishment sticking out with its nice buildings and facilities and the regular visitations of foreigners. Thoughts like, “Why are all these benefits not going to the kids in our village?” are not uncommon.

Indeed, many hostel ministries are either too isolated from the community or careless about developing relationships within the community. A tense relationship between the community and hostel ensues. I have visited hostel ministries with such tense relationships with communities that whenever the hostel youths exit the hostel gates, they would be beaten up by the other young people in the village with the village leaders standing aside to watch. In many situations, the hostel ministry is an unwelcome addition to the community because intentional community development is often not in the plans of hostel ministries, except for the occasional invitations to Christmas or New Year celebrations. Christian hostel ministries need to be less inward-looking and protective, learn the value of community and be positive influences, building up village relationships where they are.

4. Cyclical Problem

When children are plucked out of their community and brought into one where neighbors have little or no interaction with them, their identity and feeling of belonging will be impacted. As a result, many when older do not return to contribute to their village’s standard of living or education level. They seem to struggle with any particular allegiance and sense of belonging to their birth community. Having spent most of their growing-up years in a more developed city or township, they do not always think that living in the home village is the best option for their lives. Neither are they concerned about improving the livelihood of future generations in their own village because there is no longer any sense of relational or sentimental attachment. Thus the poverty cycle and educational challenges that hostel ministries are out to tackle persist. The next generation of children continues to fit the mold of the ‘needy’ entitled to be sent to Christian hostels.

They seem to struggle with any particular allegiance and sense of belonging to their birth community

What motivations do these needy communities have to work out their social and family challenges? Is the Christian hostel ministry another form of a welfare handouts scheme, where there is little motivation to get out of the miry cycle of problems? Maybe some do not want to get out of poverty or family challenges so that their children can be selected for hostels. Up to the present, Christian hostel ministries have done little to plan to break this cyclical problem, which is the primary challenge that many such ministries set out to address. The tragic irony is that many Christian hostel ministries are unthinkingly fueling this cycle.

5. Inadequate Training and Accountability

In Thailand, most of the hostel parents or staff are neither adequately trained in understanding the behavior of children, nor do they have the basic training needed for running or managing a hostel. Sadly, hostel ministries take up so much time and attention that there really is no opportunity for specific equipping and self-development. Who would care for the kids when caregivers and staff attend a seminar or conference? None I have met have ever talked about being sent to such training after taking up the role of hostel parents or staff. Most of the Christian hostel caregivers and staff I know of are often trained in a Bible school where subjects like child counseling and financial stewardship are not part of the curriculum. If the Christian hostel ministry is thriving in Thailand, these are then major areas for anyone going into a Christian hostel type of ministry.

We may have an overly simplistic and shallow perspective on Christian hostel ministries, thinking that Bible training alone is enough to run such a ministry.

Knowing that a handful would have entered or been sent to Bible school with the knowledge and hope of starting a Christian hostel, more should be done in revising the curriculum in Thai Bible schools. This in my opinion is one of the main reasons many hostel ministries do not last long without falling into child abuse problems or financial misconduct. We may have an overly simplistic and shallow perspective on Christian hostel ministries, thinking that Bible training alone is enough to run such a ministry. I have never come across any accountability or accreditation body for hostel ministries in Thailand. We have such bodies for almost any industry in the world, but there is sorely a lack of any accountability system to keep these ministries equipped for the job they are tasked with. It is no small task; it is the lives of children that are being entrusted.

Recommendations: What Next?

Please stop raising up Christian hostel ministries without careful consideration. We need to think of other ways of addressing poverty in communities and broken families issues amongst a people group. An extraction mindset and strategy should not be the first and only option in addressing these challenges. Are we willing to invest money in helping and developing whole communities instead? Or do we wish to avoid taking more time and effort? Are we encouraging self-sustenance in financial planning and rewarding families who are committed to staying together? It is vital to rethink the message we are sending to Thai society with our engagement in Christian hostel ministries.

An extraction mindset and strategy should not be the first and only option in addressing these challenges.

A ministry model worth considering is introducing “Learning Centers” into villages and communities. Instead of taking needy children away for education, this model seeks to bring education to them by setting up a “Learning Center” in the village. “Learning Centers” not only provide afterschool educational help, the teachers also act as big brothers and sisters to mentor children by journeying with them through life. Scholarships in many cases can be provided for the children, to encourage families to continue the education of their children. Usually these “Learning Centers” are well taken care of and supported by the villagers themselves because the students are their children. Some of the adults may even make available a little part of their land for such “Learning Centers” to be built. Ministry models like this take a longer time to see results. It requires the commitment to train suitable helpers. But the emphasis is in building meaningful relationships and strengthening whole families by journeying with them through the realities of daily living. At the heart of it, this approach will keep communities and families at the center of all transformation and discipleship efforts.