2014 A Reflection 2015 The Vision Continues

A message from Avis Rideout – Director Nikki’s Place Agape Home February 2015, Chiang Mai

Life’s challenges are designed not to break us but to bend us towards God.

People who know their God will accomplish much. We know that we are not the boss, the leader, the conductor; it is God who is guiding us. With the help of God through the amazingly supportive staff here at Agape, and the generosity of sponsors, donors, and prayer warriors around the world, I am able to accomplish what I do with love and joy in my heart. I could not have realized my dream without those who have chosen to give of themselves and share the vision.

I am reminded of this verse from Nehemiah 6:9 - “Now therefore O God, strengthen my hands…”This was at a time when Nehemiah struggled to rebuild the wall, while he was ridiculed, and plotted against. A question often asked of leaders when faced with challenge “Do you ever feel like giving up?” Despite all the challenges along the way, I have never felt like giving up. I have always believed that you can’t change what happened yesterday, so you just move on, keep striving to realize that dream. Nehemiah built the wall in 52 days, showing those who had doubted him that God’s work had been done. He continued to read scripture and pray for guidance as he built the wall, and God was always there with him.

It took 5 years to build Agape, 5 years of God’s direction and Agape to me has encouragement. It is still growing today because I never want to always been a think it is finished. Agape to me has always been a life-long life-long commitment and never a short term goal. This is what compels me commitment and to move forward with new ideas and a vision for the future. There never a short is no end date. It is time to teach the Agape family to continue in term goal. strength and worship. A very wise lady said to me recently at the Heidi Baker conference,“When you start to think of your time at Agape as a job, beware.”This has never been and never will be a job for me. I love every minute of every day here at Agape, and it fills my heart with joy. At 67 I am still compelled to serve God in the same way I was when I was young. So, here is an update on the Rideout family…

Roy and I went back to Canada for 2 months this past summer to be with Tatyana, our 18yr old, and to get her settled in school. We moved Natasha and her family from Newfoundland to Kelowna B.C. where the children are now doing so well in their Christian school. Nikki is also living in Canada attending the same Community College in Kelowna B.C. as Tatyana. Although Nikki struggled initially, she has never asked to come home. She is doing so well and is happy, but misses her beloved Chiang Mai. Tatyana is experiencing some struggles adjusting to Canadian living, cold climate, different food and strange Canadian ways. :-)

We celebrated the marriage of Joshua to his lovely wife Anita, who he met at Payap University, with a beautiful Chiang Mai wedding. The happy couple returned to Bangkok where they are busy with their careers. Josh works in IT designing apps for cell phones and Anita is with the British Embassy. They are hoping to move to Britain in the future. Meanwhile, Caleb is living and working here in Chiang Mai for an NGO, offering services to the foreign community. He hopes to put his International Business degree to good use and establish his own business here soon. Are we in the fruit business? Yes!

So here we are, one month into the New Year. All we seem to hear these days is how busy everyone is. But busy doing what? Are we accomplishing anything? Are we producing fruit or just busy tending the leaves that dry up and die? I believe that a healthy, well- tended tree will live on with new life and limbs. When I am no longer here to tend the tree, there will be others to carry on. This is what Agape is all about, this is the vision. The Vision is to make sure that Agape always moves forward. Expectations are led by God; we all work as a team to realize them.

Reflecting on 2014, the year brought many compelling changes to Agape. We are happy to announce that 7 of our children were adopted by loving families. We welcomed 16 new angels to our family, 7 babies and 9 older children. Three children came back for a short stay before going back to their families. Our “Prodigal Son” returned to live with us after being away. Click to hear the remarkable story or visit www.nikkisplace.org/prodigal_son. In total, we had 98 children in our home last year, 51 boys and 47 girls. Of these children we have 30 who are non-HIV, but are here because of other circumstances, abandonment, orphaned, or poor families unable to care for them. We cared for 4 ladies in the MBU; unfortunately we lost 3 of those young women.

In the early days of Agape we lost many children to the disease. Today the future is much healthier. But we deal with the confusion surrounding the disease. Why me? Why am I here? Where am I going? What challenges will I face living with HIV? This is the new face of HIV for us here at Agape, encouraging these young people to strive and move forward, to feel accepted in society just like any other child. Dreams DO come true!

God has spoken to me many times over the years, this past year some of those visions have come true. These are some of His Blessings:

10 years ago a Russian lady gave me a donation to start a swimming pool fund, this was a dream I had for the children to have their own pool. Since then a very generous businessman from my home community has donated sufficient funds to make the dream a reality and in July we opened our pool, to the delight of all the kids. I was blessed to be able to baptize 16 people in that pool, 3 volunteers and 13 young, very-willing Agape kids.

Another vision from God was to have a cafeteria where all the children could eat and socialize together, relationships were breaking down from the kids being divided at meal times. Our cafeteria opened in 2014 it can seat 250 people. It is a place where teams and guests can join the children and feel like one big family sitting down to share a meal. A YouTube video was posted on our website to appeal for help to fund this project; we received gifts totaling $30,000. We saw one of our girls start University and another will start this summer. Our oldest girl will graduate from college in April and go on to University to obtain her Bachelors Degree, all of which is funded by her US sponsor. We have 11 children attending a government vocational school where they study cooking, tourism, secretarial and other subjects and two at the school of technology.

Each year we are blessed to have International Teams of students visit and spend valuable time with the children. They organize sports activities, swimming lesson, crafts and special projects. No doubt - this is truly a high point for the children, they team up as buddy’s and form lasting bonds.

After many years, we were able to obtain sponsorship to provide dental work for every child, young to old. The children are now having eye check ups and are able to get vision glasses.

We have received funding to build a factory here on the Agape site. This factory is another vision that I have had for the future of our young boys. We will be making bricks for construction projects while at the same time providing these boys with work and a sense of purpose. Our boys from outlying villages under Project Lek will also be coming here to work. This will provide a much needed opportunity for these boys.

Our sponsorship program is getting healthier each year. Our Canadian sponsors grew more than 50 % in 2014. Our goal is to double this again in 2015. We are just finalizing a Canadian Registered Charity site for tax purposes called Changing Lives Thailand.

Recently we received Thai visitors from five government-run orphanages, staff and directors who were deeply touched by Agape Home. A seed was planted in them to return to their own facilities and spread the love they felt here, to realize that these children are all special individuals and deserve equal opportunities. We pray that they adopt some of the Agape ways of loving their children unconditionally. Another step in preparing our young people to become self sufficient is to now have dorms for boys and girls. A place for 16 –19 year olds, where they are responsible for taking care of themselves without house parents. They are responsible for their own personal care, taking their medication, getting to school and doctors appointments. This is a big step in preparing them for the outside world. From here they will move on after finishing their education and are ready to tackle life beyond Agape.

So life goes on at Agape but none of this would be possible without you. We thank you for your love and support for our children. We could not do what we do without people like you. THANK YOU

P.S. Please share our stories on your Facebook page throughout the year, and invite your friends to follow our Facebook page. You never know where seeds will bear fruit. Please click the Get Notifications option under the Liked button. Like, Comment, and Share. It’s a big deal. Thanks!

PSS. We are planning a VERY special 24-Hour Fundraising Event using Social Media and our new Web site. Coming in April 2015. Join us in prayer for this. If you would be available to help with this event, we need 1. Advocates on Social Media, 2. Helpers that can create Social Media like video’s and meme’s, and 3. Donors that can provide matching gifts for the event. Please get in touch with us immediately if you or anyone you know can help with any of these. Thank you! Ephesians 3:20!