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
What a great opportunity we had as a ministry to address the enthusiastic crowd of students gathered at the Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati for the Summer of Service Conference. Over 900 teenagers from 14 states came for a week of showing God’s tangible love to the city through outreach and service projects like helping build homes with Habitat… 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
Todd Kutzke recently served at an Indian orphanage alongside the Back2Back India staff. He shared thoughts from the experience on his company blog, which I’ve reposted below. Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to visit a few orphanages around Hyderabad. It’s an incredibly humbling experience. A little while back, I read a fantastic book… 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
This week we are being visited by Calumet Christian School out of Columbus. One of their teachers, Chris, has been coming here for a couple of years and now comes twice a year, once with his school and once with his church. They are a group of men who have decided to focus on one… Read more