What We Do: Standard of Care

Arms of Love is unique in the type and standard of care that it provides to its children. Arms of Love is not a relief organization, that seeks to provide temporary relief for basic physical needs in crisis situations. Arms of Love does not provide "supplemental" care, such as assistance with meals, clothing, medical care and education, to children who live in poverty but who have a place to live and someone committed to caring for them. Arms of Love does not operate orphanages, which often have a low staff-to-child ratio, are not based on a family model, and typically focus on providing children with basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter. No doubt there are many wonderful organizations called to those types of work, but the Arms of Love vision is different.

Our vision is to reach the lowest of the low, and lift them high. To rescue the most desperate children, and care for them as if they were our very own. To reach the most rejected children, and love them as if we were caring for Christ Himself.

Arms of Love receives children who have been permanently separated from their parents due to death, abandonment, or substantial abuse, and provides those children with the highest standard of care on a full-time, long-term basis. Our objective is to help these children develop into productive members their communities through education, vocational training, Christian discipleship, and the development of other life skills. Our hope is that through our ministry, children who were thrown away yesterday will become leaders tomorrow, in their churches and in their communities.

This vision can only be accomplished by providing a standard of care that is designed to break the cycle of poverty, abandonment, and abuse in the lives of the children we care for. Accordingly, our programs include components such as personal counseling, field trips, sports and recreational activities, computer classes, one-on-one tutoring and vocational training. Most of our children also attend private Christian schools. By permanently changing the course of these children's lives, we not only change their lives, but we change the lives of their future children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

From an economic viewpoint, we want to break the cycle of poverty by equipping the children to support themselves and their future families. Since many children have been absent from school for many years, this often means tutoring the children sufficient to accelerate their educational progress so they can graduate at an appropriate age. Through some combination of education and the learning of vocational skills, each child must be equipped with the tools needed to obtain a good job - preferably one of their own choosing - when they move out of our home.

From an emotional and psychological standpoint, we also want to break the cycle of abandonment and abuse in the children's lives. It is well-documented that children who are abused when they are young are more likely to abuse their own children as adults. Breaking this cycle requires a great deal of love and attention from the staff. Professional psychological counseling and care is often helpful. And how well will the children function within their own families some day, if they never experienced the love of a family as children? Having a substitute mother and father growing up - a couple who loves them as their own - is critical to creating a foundation that the children can work from in caring for their own children in the future.

For children who have suffered as much as ours' have - children who have spent years dealing with unimaginable physical and sexual abuse, abandonment by their families, homelessness on the streets - the challenge of genuinely changing the direction of their lives, and the lives of their children and subsequent generations, is a significant one. And it cannot be accomplished by focusing solely on the children's basic physical needs of food, clothing and shelter. The best solution is one that integrates physical care with a loving family environment, a high level of staff-to-child interaction, care plans that are tailored to the special needs of each child, professional medical and psychological care, spiritual discipleship, and strong attention to each child's educational and vocational needs.

In practical terms, this philosophy drives us to our current model, where each child has a houseparent couple that they relate to as their "mom" and "dad"; a staff that is dedicated to ministering to all the needs of the children; a staff-to-child ratio of about one staff member for every three children; and all other programs and facilities necessary to provide an environment in which the children can thrive and realize their full potential.

Moreover, the houseparent model and the high staff-to-child ration enables us to develop meaningful relationships with the children. These relationships are the means by which the children allow us into their world, giving us "permission" to speak into their lives and change their future. And such relationships are only possible with a high level of interaction between the children and a staff that truly loves them and takes the time to care for their multi-layered needs.

Consider where these children are coming from. Street children in less-developed countries are typically scorned within their own communities. The reason they are homeless in the first instance is that they were abandoned and abused by their own parents and relatives, and the feeling of worthlessness that results is only exacerbated by life on the streets. Since street children resort to begging, stealing and prostitution to survive, they are typically viewed as a "problem" to be eradicated, not as children in need of love and nurturing.

Is it any wonder that, coming from such a context, the children we receive feel completely unworthy of love? Unworthy of something good happening in their lives? Unwilling to believe that someone genuinely cares about them? Such children will naturally work from the assumption that their new caretakers at the "children's home" don't really care about them. The ministry must have some ulterior motive, a desire to use them in a new way, a means to some hidden end. Perhaps the project is just a device for attracting money from rich foreign donors - which money "must" be going toward lining someone's pockets rather than caring for the children (which, unfortunately, is too often the truth in some programs).

The way in which we care for the children can significantly, though perhaps subtly, affect the children's view of themselves and our own motives in caring for them. A very poor or minimalist standard of care can reinforce the children's pre-existing view of themselves as being without significant value, and their cynical perception of our own motives in caring for them. By contrast, a program that provides the children with a nice home, a good and varied diet, a good school to attend, and most importantly, a high level of love and attention, will lift the children's view of themselves and their potential and raise their aspirations in life and hopes for the future.

Could it be that these people really love me for who I am, despite all that I've done in the past?

Could it be that I am "worthy" of such wonderful things?

Could it be that some day, I could have a nice home and family of my own?

Could it be that God really cares about me?

These are the questions we want the children to be asking - because these are the questions that will guide them toward truth, trust, and ultimately, change. But the questions will go unasked if we give them the crumbs from our table. They will only arise when we give them the best we can offer - caring for them as if they were our own. Caring for them in a way that reflects God's heart toward them - and toward us.