There’s a field on the other side of the street in Rio I. For the most part, it’s been vacant. The only sign of life has been the layer of weeds sprouting up. After the rainy season the ground covering becomes so thick that sexual predators have been known to hide there to prey on… Read more
My first week interning with Back2Back India has opened my eyes. There is no way I could have been fully prepared for my initial visit to this hostel (children’s home) in rural India. I was a little nervous when we pulled up, but was instantly comforted by familiar verses painted on the walls in English… Read more
School is out for summer! As summer vacation begins, some of the orphans we serve leave their children’s home to temporarily stay with any living relative who may be willing to take them in for a few weeks during the break. I hardly know how to wrap my mind around this reality. It’s difficult to… Read more
Being in Nigeria for almost four weeks I have often wondered if we are making a difference here. Will we ever fully know the answer to that question? Before coming here our desire was to come to help out where needed and to serve the people here – whatever that looks like. Now that we… Read more
There has been a faithful Back2Back supporter, who I’ll call Jill, who has regularly donated money for a little girl named Sarahi. Sarahi lives in the Rio, which is one of the squatter’s villages that Back2Back serves. Sarahi is eight years old and just finishing 2nd grade. Jill has helped to fund Sarahi’s education and… Read more
Before coming to serve in India, I had lots of questions. Many centered around monsoon season. When would it rain? How much rain? Does it rain all day? Everyday? No one was really able to answer those questions. “We’ll just see,” said my Indian friend. I like warm sunny days. We had plenty of those…. Read more
This past Sunday morning, I accompanied a visiting team from Cincinnati to Casa Hogar Douglas in the morning for church. This is the seventh Father’s Day that I have lived here in Mexico, but for some reason it really began to dawn on me throughout the morning what a depressing day this must be for… Read more
Recently a new girl came to our hostel (children’s home). Naveena had come from another children’s home about five hours away. School was out for the summer and all the other children had been picked up by whatever family they had to go “home” for the summer. But Naveena had no family to visit. So… Read more
I have learned that my definition of submitting to authority and God’s definition is oftentimes very different. God’s definition of submission is to voluntarily arrange yourself under authority. When we do that, we cooperate with a leader in order to ultimately accomplish a much larger work than we could ever do on our own. In… Read more
We recently took our boys to a nearby lake for some fishing where I happened to capture this photo of Leo. Leo lives with the Cooper Family in the James House as a part of The Hope Program. Just like my boys he is getting ready to graduate from Secundaria (middle school) and will start… Read more