Missions or Service?

Is Story International a mission organization, seeking to spread the Good News of redemption through Jesus Christ, or a service organization for vulnerable children and parents, modeled after Biblical love and set on seeing every child grow up in a family?

Short answer?

Both.

Now onto the longer (and hopefully clearer) answer.

We’ve wrestled with this question as we’ve tried to make sense of what it means to be a non-profit that is seeking to provide services and resources to ANY vulnerable children and parents (irrespective of their personal beliefs) while also being founded and based upon Christian beliefs.

Part of the challenge is making sense of what it means to be a Christian organization versus what it looks like to be a Christian person. In many ways they are the same, but there are a lot of gray areas that require wisdom and discernment to sort out on an organizational level.

This is especially true in our area of work, which is directly tied to the secular world of government agencies and the child protection system. Yet in order to run a foster care network (something that countless children in Guatemala desperately need), collaboration with the local and national government are obligatory.

In Guatemala, we’ve been blessed with a lot of government support for our work despite the fact that we are a religious nonprofit. We have been certified and have a contract which allows us to recruit, train, and manage families in our foster care network.

They have to meet certain requirements and stipulations, of course, and also go through the long legal process of becoming accredited as well. But we’re able to direct our primary recruitment efforts at local church congregations, meaning children in Huehue can have a much higher chance of having not just their physical, emotional, and relational needs met, but their spiritual needs as well.

Maybe you’ve been on the fence in your opinion on orphanages, as you know they aren’t the ideal environment for kids to grow, but you also know that due to frequent church visits and mission teams, children there might be exposed to the Gospel many times as they’re growing up.

Maybe you’ve even been on a trip where you saw children in an orphanage come to accept Christ. It definitely happens, and that can be a blessing found amidst the heartbreak of family separation and loss.

However, this isn’t always the case. In other circumstances, children can be turned off to the idea of God because of the treatment they receive. In Guatemala, for example, church visits can be infrequent, children can be required to attend the visits, say “thank you” for the snacks they receive, and have their pictures taken by strangers like they were in an exhibition for tourists.

How do I know? I was present once when a visit like this occurred. I’ve also talked with children who’ve grown up in institutional care who’ve felt at times like they were checklist items on a list of “good deeds”, and that people weren’t truly interested in them. Maybe they were even brought to churches where people called attention to their circumstances and pitied them.

But beyond all that, there’s a much more important point to consider here. INVESTMENT. Once you factor this in, it becomes almost impossible to justify the orphanage model as a helpful tool for evangelism.

Let’s focus on local churches here, as the short-term mission model has many pitfalls and problems that it is rarely an ideal experience for children in orphanages and institutions, and in some cases can even do more harm than good (especially in terms of attachment disorders in institutionalized kids).

Imagine that every month, a church visits an orphanage in their community. They stay for a couple of hours, maybe share a message, bring snacks and games, and try to encourage the children to be strong and trust in God. But if they are not consistently coming (as in every week, not just 1-2 times a year), the impact they could have (as mentors) is not likely to be achieved.

While these visits are certainly MUCH more than many children receive, even sometimes in the U.S., and especially when we consider that there are over 3 billion unreached people around the globe, it is a far cry from the daily guidance, support, discipline, encouragement, and teaching that a child growing up in a Christian home experiences (“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6).

And here’s where those Christian homes come in.

Now imagine a child is living with a Christian foster family and not only hearing the Good News but also SEEING and LIVING and EXPERIENCING what it means to be loved and to belong. The image of a loving God is much easier to understand when those who love Him seek to love others the same way.

In a family-based context like foster care, not only are children generally significantly better off in terms of all the typical developmental markers (physical, mental, emotional, social, etc…), but they can also experience Christian love, care, and guidance throughout each and every day they are in care.

We cannot know exactly how God is working in the hearts of children, but it is not unreasonable to assume that the Good News of love, adoption, belonging, hope, and redemption we see in the Gospel are much easier for a child to understand when that is the life they are given inside a home alongside a Christian foster family. 

Of course some foster families in Guatemala are not Christian and not every child will respond in the same way to experiencing the Good News in this way. And whether or not kids come to know Christ, they still get to be loved in a Christlike way: a way that is patient, kind, and abounding in grace - just what many children in foster care so desperately need!

That said, by focusing primarily on recruiting Christian foster families we have a better chance at meeting all their developmental needs, including their greatest need - their spiritual need to know Christ.

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3

We are so grateful to have this unique opportunity not just to offer a vitally needed service to the vulnerable children and families of Huehue, but also to create another avenue for them to experience the love of God.

P.S. - Want to hear the story of a young lady who experienced healing, safety, care, and reunification (shortly after this video was made) AND came to accept Christ as her savior during her time with a Story foster family? Click here for the link to the private video on our YouTube channel (feel free to share with friends or family, but we’d ask that you don’t post it directly to social media).