Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep957: Are Orphanages Doing More Harm Than Good? Alycia Pinizzotto

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Every Christian believes that orphans should be cared for. But how? Do they belong in orphanages or in families? Are orphanages a necessary way to care for orphans in a broken world? Or are they perpetuating a cycle of harm toward vulnerable and traumatized children? Alycia used to run an orphanage with her husband, but came to believe that they were not actually helping kids, so they developed a different approach to orphan care, one that helps vulnerable kids be placed in healthy families.  Alycia is the CEO at Story International, an organization that serves the vulnerable of Guatemala so that we may one day see the restoration of family structures and the cycles of generational poverty broken. Story Intl. strives to see fewer kids institutionalized and more kids cared for in the context of family. They seek to empower communities and engage the local church as a new generation of Guatemalans rises up to lead their communities with unwavering faith in Jesus Christ. Story’s motto is: Children belong in families, not orphanages, which is the focus of our conversation.  https://www.storyintl.org https://www.linkedin.com/in/alycia-pinizzotto –––––– EVENTS Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. We are exactly one week away from the first annual Theology in the Raw Exiles in Babylon conference. There is just a few in-person spots open. So I know that probably grabbing a plane ticket and flying out here is, it might be a little too late for you to plan that, but if you do want to make a last minute decision to come out here, there are still just a few spots open, but online registration is unlimited. So if you do want to follow the Exiles in Babylon conference, it's going to be unique. It's going to be engaging. It's going to be probably like no other Christian conference you've been to for various reasons, as you will see if you attend. And yeah, we did recently add Francis Chan to the repertoire of

speakers. So I'm really excited about that. He's going to be certainly very challenging and provocative as he always is. My guest today is Alicia Penizzotto. Penizzotto? Penizzotto? Oh, Alicia. I hope I didn't butcher your name. You told me it and I practiced it and now I forgot exactly how to pronounce it. But Alicia is the director, the executive director at Story International, which she'll explain what she does in this podcast. Long story short, we are going to talk about different approaches to orphan care. Now, I want to give, I guess, a little maybe word of warning up front that there is a fairly heated debate about how best to care for orphans. And one side of the debate is very

big on orphanages. And Alicia and her husband ran an orphanage for many years. But she more recently, like over the last five years, has had a really change in perspective. And so now she would be much more critical of orphanages as a means of caring for orphans. There's no debate, shouldn't be any debate, about whether we should care for orphans. The debate is how best to care for orphans. The debate is how best to care for orphans. And my word of warning up front is I know probably some of you have been personally invested in, maybe financially, maybe with your time in orphanages. And you're going to hear some things that are going to be challenging. I'll just be straight up. You're going to hear some things that are going to challenge whether that's the best way to care for orphans.

I can imagine a decent percentage of you are going to be thrilled to hear somebody speak about this because you two have had maybe personal issues with orphanages. So this is going to be a sensitive episode. I love Alicia's perspective. She's very cautious and kind and humble and wise. And you'll hear she keeps qualifying herself and like, I don't want to be too critical or make people feel bad, but here's kind of where I'm at and why. So anyway, that's the word of warning up front. So please welcome to the show for the first time, Alicia Penizzotto. All right. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with

Alicia Penizzato. Alicia, thanks so much for joining me out of nowhere as a mutual friend, put us in touch. And I just love what you're doing through your ministry, according to what I read on the website. So I'm really excited about this conversation. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I am totally honored. This is not like a thing I do. I feel very honored to be here. Awesome. Awesome. Well, why don't you tell people what you have been doing and do as a ministry? And I would love to fairly quickly get into kind of different approaches to orphan care. And I know you've had a really change in perspective on that. And it's a fascinating journey. So yeah, but tell us who you are had a really change in perspective on that. And it's a fascinating

journey. So yeah, but tell us who you are and how you got into the work that you're doing. Yeah, my name is Alicia. Honestly, the best way to kind of sum up everything is like I was a 19 year old accidental missionary who has been in orphan care ever since for about a decade now and pretty much done everything wrong in the context of our ministry. Our ministry is called Story International, and we can get into that later. But fast forward to today, we are an organization implementing family-based care initiatives in Guatemala, which is like a big fancy word in the orphan care community, which just means that how we approach orphan care is a family at the center.

We're looking at keeping families together and keeping kids out of orphanages and looking to alternative forms of care versus a traditional orphanage structure. So that's kind of long and short of who we are today, at least. Yeah. Would it be fair, and I'm known for asking really stupid questions, but people say there's no stupid question or liars. There's lots of stupid questions, and I've asked me of them. But would it be fair to say that within orphan care ministry, there's two very general, but two kind of different perspectives. One approach would be very much pro-orphanage, like orphanages are a healthy, helpful way to address the need of orphan care. And then another approach that would be very critical of orphanages.

Is that an accurate way of framing it or is that? Yeah, it is. And I would say it's unfortunate that that's accurate because it has actually created, I think, an unnecessary tension and just kind of sense of judgment within the orphan care community. But yes, there are very much, you know, when you encounter people who are working, at least, especially in the international context, right, when they're working with orphan and vulnerable children. Yeah, you have people who are running orphanages, who are, you know, putting on capital campaigns to build orphanages, who are sponsoring kids in orphanages, and have always done that. And that's what their church has done for a long time,

and that's what they're sending their missionaries to do. And then on the other end, you have kind of this emerging movement. It's actually picked up a lot of momentum even in the last three to four years of organizations and faith-based organizations, ministries, churches, movements moving toward deinstitutionalization, which is like the buzzword of getting kids out of orphanages and really, you know, looking at a lot of the studies that all point to the detrimental effects of, you know, kids growing up in institutions. And very much, it's like you have those two groups, and unfortunately, they a lot of times aren't odds with one another.

And I mean, I lived that. So I can tell you a little bit of that. Like I was caught in the middle of that. So my husband and I ran an orphanage for five years. We kind of accidentally ended up running an orphanage. I recommend that to nobody. We were under-trained. We were under-qualified.

But honestly, this is the story of like most people I know in orphan care. It's like, you're all heart. And and then you're like what are we doing so we had 120 kids in our care and um this conversation kind of started happening with people in our circle about hey is this best for kids and we had had our own tension based off of our experiences of like okay like what is our end goal here right like um like we were seeing these really I mean heartbreaking like cycles happening playing out in real time right in front of us but at the same time it's like you kind of trust the model because it's just it's the model right it's like I you know I grew up in a church that always funded orphanages that always sent you know their

high school short-term mission team to visit an orphanage. And I just kind of assumed, well, clearly this, if this is the best we've come up with, it's the best we can come up with. Right. And so I experienced that kind of like push and pull for a while where there's people around me being like, Hey, you know, we need to look at this research. Hey, have you read this? And I was, it was so disorienting. I felt confused. I felt attacked. I felt like, okay, so you're saying that everything we've been pouring our lives into is actually just harmful to children. I mean, I couldn't wrap my head around that. And so I felt that kind of resistance of like, you know, like, Hey, we're different. I felt that for sure. And so I think that's accurate,

what you're saying. There's these two groups and they're very much kind of like trying to prove to one another, um, you know, which what's the, what's the best way to go. And I would say that's very unfortunate, um, that it is. The passion is understandable. I mean, you're both trying to help orphans, my gosh, like lives of these kids are at stake. So this isn't like, you know, different approaches to like, you know, biblical eschatology or something. I mean, not that that's not unimportant, but I mean, it's like, it's not taking care of orphans. So I would assume that different approaches that would see the other approach as possibly, I'm going to be cautious, I'll let you be bold, possibly doing more harm than good or doing unforeseen harm. If one approach

has that perspective, I could see where somebody would be very offended by that. So you started, obviously, on the orphanages, or you used to use the phrase, yeah, institutionalized approach. Residential care, residential care, orphanage. We're all kind of talking about the same thing. In layman terms. Kids growing up in a group home. Yeah. Yeah.

Orphanages are a good thing. They're great. And now you no longer hold that view. Can you walk us through some of the reasons why you now have a very different approach to orphan care? Yeah, I sure can. I'll try to be as succinct as possible. So this was like not a pretty journey for me personally, nor for our organization. It was tough.

I mean, there was just some years in there of turmoil. And anyway, so like I said, my husband and I, you know, in our organization, we are running this orphanage. It's not something we really set out to do, but just kind of it happened. And we had these kids under our care. And, man, those years were hard. They're really beautiful in a lot of ways. I mean, I could tell you crazy just like Jesus stories that would blow your mind. Right.

But at the same time, like there is all this stuff happening out of the surface. And I'll be really just transparent with you here. It's like abuse in orphanages is rampant. Nobody wants to talk about it. We have to talk about it. We were running a, what I believe to be a very good program, meaning we were well-funded. We were training our staff, probably not to the extent we should have been, but we were, we were vetting them. We, um, um we just we had a lot of things going for us honestly a lot of a lot of orphanages do not um and i mean our organization and my husband we were committed to like the taking care of the children in our care you know we would hire nutritionists to make our menu and all the kids had scholarships to a bilingual school and on paper it's like

wow what a great opportunity right um But I will tell you this, kids were not thriving under our care. And we had to wrestle with that. I mean, kids were, you know, falling into self destructive habits. We had kids being harmed under our care. So the reality is you put 120 kids who come from traumatic backgrounds together with the, you know, caretaker ratio of one to 15, which is actually kind of low. Um, and you, you can't handle that. Like the model is just not set up. Like it is set up for survival. So I'm happy to report nobody ever died in our care, but like, um, children would harm other children. Older kids would harm younger children. We had instances where there was instances with staff.

And I say that with like, it is hard to talk about. I mean, I carry those moments and situations like deep within me. I've had to reconcile them before the Lord, like to not, you know, walk in guilt and shame around that because it was exhausting. It's like, no, like we, like, then what do we do? What do we turn? Like, you know, what do they need? What do the kids need?

How do we stop this? And really, like, you know, one of the most disheartening parts of that whole experience was, like, you know, we'd get a call from the courts for a case. And we would, like, recognize the last name. And it would be a family who, like, the mom had grown up in that orphanage and now her child is coming back into the system and so at some point we just had to be like okay like this isn't working but to be fair we didn't know what to do about that it's like when you're in it and it's like you know everyone's cheering you on honestly that's a really confusing part that i'll just also be really honest about it's like you have your churches and your people at home that

are like you know holding you up as the poster child of like how to be a great christian and care for orphans and then you're like who do i tell about the abuse like who do i tell about like how this is not working without like everybody freaking out and pulling funding because that would be detrimental too right it's like the transitions can't happen fast in this world so it's like man it was so tough and then I'll tell you a story so there is definitely like a paradigm shift moment for us where it was like tension building tension building tension building then in 2017 so in um Guatemala there's private run orphanages and there are state-run orphanages the state-run orphanages are extremely overcrowded. It's a place, if you've ever walked into one, it's an experience. So there was a Guatemala City 17. I remember this day, any memory I have,

I started getting calls on March 8th was the day. I started getting calls from like Child Protective Services asking if I'd heard what had happened. And so basically in one of these state-run facilities, there had been some protesting. So March 8th is international women's day. And some of the teenage girls were protesting abuse that they were experiencing in the home from caretakers, from staff. There were some of the girls were being trafficked out to very prominent people in government. I mean, there was, these reports are pretty well known across Guatemala, but nothing had ever been done. Actually in the years leading up to this incident, six kids had died in care in that orphanage investigations had not been carried out um I mean it was a ticking time bomb if you look at all the

evidence right but then on this particular day some of the teenage girls were protesting and they had planned to to run away and so some of them ran away, about 100 of them escaped. They called in the police, the National Guard, everybody you can think of. They ended up capturing most of these teenagers who had ran away. And as punishment, basically, for both the protesting and for running away, they were put into a like six by seven meter room to sleep for the night. They were given a couple of mattresses, weren't allowed out to use the bathroom. They were under lock and key and there was police officers guarding the door. Um, at one point early that morning, March 8th, uh, some of the girls were mad that they couldn't

use the bathroom. They were having to go to the bathroom on mattresses. So one of the girls lit a mattress on fire, um, thinking surely they'll open the door. Um, they did not open the door for nine minutes and the whole room was engulfed in flames. And so 56 girls were in that room. 41 of them died. Um, they were burned alive in state custody. I'll just give you a moment to process. Um, I mean, it is like, it is unthinkable, right? These are girls, these are kids who have experienced more trauma than most people will ever experience in their entire life. They are placed in that home because they need protection. The home was called Hogar Seguro, which means safe house. And that happened. I mean,

so that moment for us, so we actually knew one of the girls who died that day. We had all of her siblings under our care at our orphanage. And I mean, I had to tell her nine-year-old sister how her sister had died. We buried her alongside her mom. So this is the shift for us. So this one girl, her name is Annalie. She died that day on the spot, burned to death. And we were in communication with her mom, helping her identify the body. And all of a sudden, and this sounds so ridiculous looking back now, but I'm like, of course her mom, of course her mom, her mom lived two blocks from our orphanage and visited her kids every sunday but the reality is we were so caught up in making sure the kids under our care had food and had a place to sleep and had their scholarships and that we just weren't paying attention right

like so i remember that day we so the day we buried Annalie her mom was there her siblings were there my husband was there a lot of the kids from our orphanage were there because they all knew this girl and that that was the shift I just you know personally and then this you know ended up translating into you know our organization's work was just you know made a promise to Annalie like this won't happen again this can can't happen again. Like, I will do everything in my power to get your siblings home and as many kids home as possible. Because the reality is Annalie had a mom, right? And so today, fast forward 2022, all of her siblings are out of care. They're all home with their biological mom and our team supports her mom. The reality is her mom was not a monster.

Her mom was poor. And that is the case for most children in care. It's the leading factor driving kids away from family. And, you know, it comes in as negligence. Annalise Casefile would have said negligence. But the reality is not that her mom was purposely being negligent. Her mom did not have the means to care for her. She had her own trauma to work through and there's other factors there. But the, the, the, at the end of the day, the cause was that she was poor. She was a single

mom supporting a lot of kids. Her kids were home alone. You know, there were just things that were happening because of their financial situation that ultimately did put the kids at risk, but they were not orphans, right? Anna Lee was not an orphan. Her siblings were orphans. And, um, so that's, I mean, if I had to pinpoint it for us and there's a lot of other factors, honestly, I can accredit some of the shift here to, to other people coming around me and saying, okay, you know, mentors and people who came and just introduced us to research and people. But if I had to boil it down, it's that moment of she wasn't an orphan and she died in care. And that's statistically,

is this a fact that most kids in orphanages do have at least one parent still alive that it's largely out of poverty? Why they end up in an orphanage? Is that. Yeah, it's 80 to 90%. So in Guatemala, it's,

it's closer to like 90, 95%. It's actually really shocking. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's actually why I use the term orphanage is because it's the people that it's the term that people most understand, but even the term itself is problematic, because we're painting a picture that an orphanage houses orphans, right? They do not, an orphanage houses orphans, right? They do not, right? Like the instances where a child is a double orphan, so like in the orphan care community, we refer to like single orphans who have lost one parent and double orphans. The number of kids who are double orphans is very, very much the exception. So yeah, 80, but globally the statistic is about 80 to 90% of kids in residential care or in

orphanages have a living parent and the definition of orphan i would assume is the death of both parents not just single parent household i mean we have tons of that here and yeah technically if you like look up the term as it's defined by like some of these like unicef and different people say an orphan is um anybody who has lost one parent actually um so then you get into the specifics of a single orphan versus a double orphan um but yes for the most part people hear the word orphan they're assuming a double orphan meaning that the child's parents are deceased, right? So you're saying one of the main issues for you is that there's a lot of abuse that happens both between, I'll just use the phrase, among the orphans and often with staff and caretakers and everything. And this is a very widespread problem in orphanages across the globe i mean you probably can't maybe speak to all that but um is that that's is that something

that people that aren't in this work are kind of blissfully unaware of that there's a lot of abuse that's happening yeah that's why i mentioned it honestly it's the tip of the iceberg if we're talking about the risks of institutional care. But I always kind of lead with it because I think it's the most shocking to people. I don't know, because, you know, people know people who run orphanages and they just like, you know, they want to believe that the orphanages they support or the orphanages they visited are the exception. And I understand that. I want to think that, you know, if you visited an orphanage, it probably felt a lot like summer camp, right? Like you did a pinata with the kids and had a pizza party and painted their faces. And you were just so grateful

that this ministry was there to care for those kids. And I, I hate that I sound sarcastic. I don't mean to sound sarcastic, but, um, it is, you know, you're it's seven days and you're not there at night. Like you're not there in these moments where like children would normally have the parental supervision. So I would say it is definitely the tip of the night. Like, you're not there in these moments where, like, children would normally have the parental supervision. So I would say it is definitely the tip of the iceberg. You know, that's probably the most, like, the ugliest part. But then you get down into just, like, the actual nature of growing up in institutional care. know spends years in an orphanage and is never abused their life is going to be dramatically altered by the simple fact that they were raised not in a family context and you know that's where you can get really deep into to some of the studies and you know it's it's relatively new

you know like Bowlby is the like guy who kind of studied attachment theory this but you know that didn't come out to like the 60s and 70s. So in some senses, it makes sense that we're kind of just now being like, OK, maybe this model is not ideal. But when you start looking at just the nature of like, you know, the need for a child to attach to a primary caretaker. And I'm not talking about a paid staff member at an orphanage. That's not a primary caretaker. That's a staff member at an orphanage that's not a primary caretaker that's a staff member right and when that doesn't happen for a child what happens just like developmentally for them so like you can look at studies that will show that so like for every three months that a child is in

an orphanage they actually regress a month developmentally and so you start doing the math and it's like okay if a kid grows up an age and ages out at 18 he actually is developmentally. And so you start doing the math and it's like, okay, if a kid grows up an age and ages out at 18, he actually is developmentally programmed like a 12 year old. And then you wonder why they have these outcomes of not being able to hold jobs and becoming homeless. Their brain is actually like not able to make the connection. Like God designed us for family. This is what it comes down to. Like, like that design was intentional, right? Like we are birthed into the world by a mother and a father, and our brains are like so beautifully designed to thrive in that environment. And especially when we're looking at kids ages zero to three, if a kid is placed in institutional care in that crucial period, I mean, the long-term effects are devastating, devastating. I mean, those kids

will be shorter, physically shorter. I mean, there's a direct correlation. It doesn't even like make sense, but it does. I mean, I can get like really meta here with studies and it won't. Like those kids will statistically be shorter, have a smaller head circumference, have a lower IQ. It affects your entire being, right? When your needs are not being met in a consistent way by a loving primary caretaker. You know, so there's a study done in Russia in like the early 2000s, studying the outcomes of kids who grow up in institutional care. And what they were determined from this study is that with this group that they did the study with, one in three became homeless, one in five had a criminal record,

one in seven was involved in prostitution, and one in 10 had committed suicide. So that one in 10 statistic means that a child growing up in institutional care is 500 times more likely to take their own life than a child growing up in a family context. Like that statistic rocks me. I'm like the just the it just points to right like the role of family plays in identity and belonging in, in your, your just sense of self value, right? We wanted kids aging out of as residential care and taking their own life because they,

they've been unable to find their place in the world in the context of, you know, the walls of an orphanage. So I got two, um, somewhat complicated questions. I mean, the question itself is simple,

but it may, it might take a while to unpack. I'll just throw them both out. Cause they're, I guess they're a little bit related. I mean, the question itself is simple, but it might take a while to unpack. I'll just throw them both out because I guess they're a little bit related. Number one, like the abuse that's happening. Is this intrinsic to the system or is it just the system's good? There just needs to be a cleanup on aisle four. By way of analogy, there's abuse that happens in the church. Does that mean church is bad or that we need to clean house a bit more? Abuse can happen in a public school. Does that mean public schools are intrinsically fostering this or do we just need to improve the system itself? So that's my first question is, do we know that the abuse that's happening, is that intrinsic to the nature of orphanages? That's my first question. The second question is, what about with all the stuff you just said recently, what if they're home? What if they do have, what if they have two parents alive? What if their mom's a crack addict and their father is an alcoholic and abusive? And so their home environment would involve physical and sexual abuse,

maybe being trafficked out by their parents. Wouldn't an institution-intuitionized context, all things considered, be better than that? Because just being in a family is one thing if the family is halfway decent, but there's some really awful family environments out there too. So, um, yeah. How, how would you, I'm sure you've wrestled with both of those questions, but yeah. Great questions. I really appreciate that. So in terms of, is the system itself broken or is this just, yeah, something that needs to be focused on? We can put policies in place, whatever. Um, no, I would say the system is broken. And so this is different. We live in a fallen world. So like, yes, abuse is happening everywhere. And children are especially vulnerable in the church, in school.

They are going to be preyed upon because they are vulnerable, right? But in this instance, like the model actually just lends itself to it more so than just generic human brokenness. I mean, you said it earlier. I don't want to answer my question for you, but I mean, you said it earlier. You're putting, by definition, people who have been through significant trauma all together. Yeah. You're putting them together with under-trained staff, underpaid staff, tired staff, and they're just not receiving the individualized attention they need to go through the healing process it is setting them up for failure in every at every turn it truly is and the issue

here is like if I if I you know thought well it's unavoidable we have to send them to institutions then yes let's put systems in let's figure out how to vet staff let's read you know decrease our child to staff rate you know caretaker ratio let's do things so the abuse is less prevalent but and that's kind of what I thought and when I was early on in this journey I'm like okay so we just we put better systems in place but when I realized oh we can actually do away with the model entirely for the most part then I'm like let's just move in that direction like this just seems too risky. So it kind of leads into your second question. So then what, what, right? Obviously, um, because we live in a broken

world, we're like these, this is not going away, right? Like children are often, you know, growing up being, you know, birth into unsafe home environments. So what happens? The best way I know how to explain it is just you follow the logical like when you're looking to solve a problem right like so the issue for your example the child growing up in a home with their substance abuse um and you know maybe some other things going on it's like okay so the family they've been birthed into is not safe for them right now and I think that right now is a really important word we can come back so they So they need to be removed, right? But it just doesn't make sense to take the thing that was broken and then, like, replace it with this other thing that doesn't even resemble, like, an institution, right?

Like, I guess what I'm getting at, when a child needs to be removed from their family environment, we have to replace it with family. It's not perfect. So what I'm getting at is traditional foster care. And this is like a whole other can of worms because in the States, we actually have a really like people who have different opinions about foster care. And we kind of hear these like horror stories and people who've never even engaged with the foster care system just being like, yeah, it's broken. I'm like, boil that down. What are we talking about here? Right? Like what is broken? And what I'll say there is, yes, it's broken because it's something put in place to remedy the fact that there's a broken

family. Like the main broken thing is not the system. The main broken thing was the broken family. That shouldn't have ever, never happened. That's heartbreaking, but it happens in our world. Right. So yeah, what I would say is for 98, 99 of children the best course for them is so they're living in that that environment hopefully somebody picks up on it somebody reports it right a teacher a neighbor somebody if that child does have to be removed from care and we need to really in the situation you gave the child needs to be removed from care I will say that children are oftentimes unnecessarily removed from care like you know you know, a report will get made, hey, these kids are being left at home for extended periods of time. And that's concerning

if it's young, a young child, but like, we got to do some digging. Where is mom? Is she at work? Okay. Is she, you know, when she is home, is she loving and caring? Okay. Is there a daycare, right? Like anything we can do to, to prevent that trauma of separation. I mean, separating a child from their family is like, that's irreversible. The trauma that happens in that moment for the child and the parent is like, man, it's going to take years, decades to repair that. Right. It's like, if it can be avoided, we need to avoid it. And I would say there's a huge gap in service there from organizations, from churches that are just like, you know, oh, well, you know, the situation seems sketchy, remove the child. But to your point, so when a

child does need to be removed from care, foster care is the best thing that we've come up with, because it is still family. so it is not their biological family but the structure god's intended structure of like family is there right and just the essence of you know even in foster care it's just different than the like you walk into an orphanage and there's 20 foot high walls on all sides of it like in no no way does it resemble life. It is very much like a glorified children's prison. I will tell you that I lived in the orphanage. I ran the orphanage. Like that is, that is what it feels like. And I wasn't a child living there. I mean, I was an adult, I've been raised in a family and I would sometimes look around and be like, why do I live

behind barbed wire? Right? Like, um, it is unnatural. It is not conducive to a child, like actually beginning to work through the pain of everything that just happened. They just had the worst thing imaginable that can happen to a child happen. Right. And then you walk into like, all right, now you eat lunch in the cafeteria. It's like anything that looked like your home life, however messed up your home life was, it gone like this is not family life like you are in an institution so I would say to that for those kids foster care um and you know that sounds like oh yeah of course but in most of the developing world this is like a brand new concept foster care is not happening it's not in a lot of countries it it's not legal. Organizations are not, you know,

they're not doing this. This isn't one of their programs, you know, seeking out local foster families, you know, from within the local church to stand in the gap for those kids that do have to be removed from care. Here, so you almost answered it for me. you almost answered it for me. Does, do, do, does, is, I don't know what verb to use here. Is the existence of orphanages keeping better systems from being developed? Like as long as there's tons of orphanages around, there's no sort of need to explore better options, foster care. Cause like, is that, is that an accurate say is that a big beef within like you're kind of prepared by keeping these things going while it seems like it is a

band-aid that might okay it's not ideal but it's with something and there's no other options available but it's like as long as these things are in existing nobody's going to explore other options is that accurate to say dude you're hitting it on what's the phrase you're hitting it the nail yeah you're hitting the nail on the head that's the thing yeah and this is such a tough part of this conversation i i try and really be careful with my words because it can sound so accusatory but like the more we fund orphanages the more we focus them, the more we pour resources into them. Like we are keeping kids from their field. It's like build it and they will come as long as there are orphanages, we will fill them. And it's an industry. Um, can you expand on that? Absolutely.

Can you expand on that? Yeah, sure. I can. It's an industry. From North America, we send about 2 million people on short-term mission trips a year. This is just North America. We're not talking about Europe and everywhere else. We send about 2 million people on short-term mission trips. We're looking at between like $2 and $8 billion that we're putting into short-term missions. Most of those people are visiting and working in orphanages. I mean, it is a common part of a typical mission trip. So like we have short-term missions.

We have child sponsorship programs. There's a lot of money coming into orphanages. I am not saying – the vast majority of people running orphanages and ministries involved in orphan care are not looking to make profit. There are those people. i've met them um i've been in lucrative orphanage yeah so there's a whole we can have a whole other conversation here about the nature of like orphanage trafficking which is i mean people are like luring kids into orphanages because it is i can tell you from experience it is easy to secure a

donation by plastering a kid's face on the internet. We don't run child sponsorship anymore. And our funding is like, it's terrible. And we won't run child sponsorship because we don't believe it to be best practice. But when we did, we didn't ever struggle with funding. There is just something that draws people in. And so then you have, you do, this is the exception. I want to emphasize that. But you do have orphanages that are that corrupt where people are making good money off of convincing parents to give their kids up, telling them they'll have a better life. Kidnapping, falsifying paperwork, falsifying death certificates. I'm telling you it is ugly, ugly, ugly. I don't want to focus on that. That is the exception. So more when I say,

more when I say this is an industry, it's like an not intentional industry, but like, it just happens quickly. Like you, let's say you run, you build an orphanage and then all of a sudden you have like all these mission teams visiting you, you have all these child sponsors. And it's like, I will tell you this from personal experience. And this takes all the humility inside of me to say this. Like there is a pressure you feel to like to your donor community to like they're I don't know.

It's like almost like you can like prove you're doing good work by having more kids and that's like really gross to say this is like this was so buried in me this took me like four years to be like oh my gosh and I like couldn't look myself in the mirror not that like we were you you understand I'm saying that like our organization has never like tried to like make money but there is this thing where it's like okay i'll give you an example so like if a kid was um going to be potentially reunified with their family which we were not heavy on reunification this would be like child protective services moving this forward now we have a whole reunification program and it's awesome

there would be a tension and i wouldn't have been able to name it in the moment. I can only name it now that I'm on the other side. There would have been a tension of like, what do I tell their sponsor? That is so messed up. Like a child is going home. Like this is the goal. And obviously that never like influenced our work, but I will tell you that, that there would be that brief moment of like, I've had sponsors like get upset with me when their child leaves like it is a weird weird world where the people funding yes yes where the people funding these models feel like an ownership of the child and it is disturbing so like we used to run a short-term mission program. And then at one point I was like,

okay, like we have to get this under control. If we have vulnerable children in our care, we can't have people taking photos. We can't have people going in their bedrooms. Like, and so like pretty, you know, quickly after we started hosting our first teams, we put some pretty rigid expectations into place just in terms of like, you know, what volunteers could and could not do. Volunteers were not allowed to hug children. If they did in a job, wanted to hug, they had to ask for it. It couldn't, you know, we had, I mean, it was pretty specific and teams could not follow the rules. It was so disturbing. Like they're like, basically then why are we here sort of? And I'm like, no, you don't, you hear what we're saying though. like we're telling you that

like I know that feels great for you it is actually harmful to that child's worldview it is harmful to them being able to form a healthy attachment as adults like don't do it and they would be like they would literally this is like grown adults would be like wait till like nobody was watching and like take a selfie like it is like I had a team one time write me a letter about how since we had implemented these limitations like the children were suffering and part of their letter said it's just so disturbing because now when we visit and when we leave um the kids don't cry oh my god I, thank God. That sounds like that's an unnecessary trauma. I'm so happy to hear that you've observed that, right? And they were like, no, no, no. It means

they're being emotionally almost abused. You're telling them they can't connect with people. And I'm like, no, we're just telling them that they don't have to connect with strangers that's not a fair expectation right like so I don't remember where I was going with this um so there's just this industry and we have to talk about it because it's like it's not and I'm saying this this is not an accusation like I'm saying we did this we had the best of intentions my heart and story's heart my organization my husband everybody who's worked with us from the get-go, it's like, we want to serve vulnerable children. I can tell you, like, there has never been any other desire or intention in our heart. But if you are not careful, this is a weird world. And then all of a sudden, you're just caught up and you have these

teams and you have these owners and these child sponsors. And it's like, yes, the more money, to answer your question, the more money and resources we pour into orphanages, we are taking away from these other alternatives. And I mean, so we just had this experience. We have started a foster care program in our region. The first of its kind, we partnered with the government. My organization is now like a private foster care agency, basically where we recruit and train families from the local church. It's a great model. And we had like all these families that were approved, like not all these families, a couple of families that were approved as foster families. They've gone through extensive training. I'm like, this is the best alternative. If a child truly has to be removed from their family in our city, these are the people they need to be with right and the judge

the judge in our town who is you know responsible for placing children would for many months wouldn't put a kid in our care and his point was kind of like there's an orphanage down the road and we know that model works oh wow okay and yeah as long as there is an orphanage and people are familiar with that model, that was kind of his perspective. Like, well, yeah, but, you know, I just, I'm not comfortable with this, basically. I don't know these families. You trained them. You accredited them. Like, but there's the orphanage.

And so we've worked through that. And now we're his first line of, you know, defense for kids coming into care. But, yes. of defense for kids coming into care, but yes. Going back to the financial part, I can imagine, especially American churches and just Americans in general, we like numbers. We like growth. We like to see things double and triple and grow. And I could imagine that they wouldn't realize that if you sent a newsletter out saying,

hey, I just want to celebrate something with you. We've gone from 200 orphans to 50. Would people kind of see that as a failure just because they're so geared towards numerical growth that they don't realize that growing the number of orphans might not be a measure of success? Did you run into that when you were running it? The nonprofit world is so weird. So it's like everyone wants you to measure your success? Did you run into that when you were running it or? The nonprofit world is so weird. So it's like, everyone wants you to measure your success. And like, I've kind of come to this realization. I'm like, it's really weird the way most nonprofits measure their success. Like really, if you were doing your job for most nonprofits, the issue

you're looking to solve success looks like serving less and less people each year. Like in a lot of ways, like we have to get more creative with our reporting because it's like, yes, like if you're just looking for numbers, like of people served, it's so superficial, right? It's like, you know, like 300 kids in an orphanage, that's a disaster. But like, if you're not looking deeply, it might look like, oh, you're serving, you're impacting so many lives, right? And something we've struggled with, we have a family preservation program. It's all about prevention. So it's those families that I mentioned who their kids don't need to come into care. They don't need to be separated, but they are at risk. So like the kids are maybe not getting the appropriate, you know, care they need, but it's because of

X, Y, Z, like some kind of preventable, you know, an issue we can work on before going to separation. And I have the hardest time explaining that program to people because they're like, the, you know, how many families? And I'm like, man, there are some families we've been working with for five years. And it's like, it's slow going. I mean, when you're digging into like intergenerational trauma and like coping mechanisms and like things that ultimately contribute to a dysfunctional environment where a child might be at risk. It's like, you got to put in work. And so it's like, yeah, we're working with 20 families and yes, I'm working with them for five years. And yes, I believe that this is more impactful

than housing 600 kids in an orphanage, right? It's like, you're shifting like generational trajectories. The other interesting financial piece there is like supporting kids in traditional foster care is significantly less expensive than supporting kids in institutional care. So like something I really try to emphasize with churches. So it's three times more expensive to house a single child in an institutional care setting than it is to place them with the foster family. Because the reality is you have to have all this staff in like something like 30 to 50% of those staff members aren't caretakers. They're not interacting with the kids. It's, you have to run. And if, you know, if you have more than 30 kids, you have to run the facility, like a facility, you have a maintenance person,

you have a secretary, you have a, um, a cook, you have a cleaning person. It's like all of a sudden it just gets really expensive. And versus placing a child with a foster family, it's three times less expensive, meaning that like churches and people looking to support, you know, orphaned and vulnerable children with their finances can do a lot more good by supporting an organization that is in family-based care. So if the president of Guatemala called you up and said, all right, Alicia, you got 10 years, you have unilateral control over this entire system, how would it be like a gradual fading out of orphanages while the foster care system is put in place. Because again, if you, even if on paper, if it's broken and the existence of orphanages are perpetuating the brokenness, if you just ended that overnight with nothing in place, that wouldn't be good either, right? Like ending orphanages alone would be a disaster too if there's nothing put in place.

So you got 10 years. I kind of rewrote the script. I just literally put words in your mouth, but what would you do in those 10 years? Would that be something like that? Yep, exactly. The transition has to be slow, and it's not something our particular organization did well,

and it's something when I get the chance to talk to other organizations, I'm like, yes, be strategic, be slow. Bring your donors into the fold, educate them. Like they're in this, they're just as invested as you, um, like do this together. And, and yes, it cannot happen overnight. We, you know, there's around 8 million kids around the globe living in orphanages. And it's like, every country is different. Every context is different. And you have to figure out how to work within the cultural context, also within the, you know, the structure of just national laws and different things. So yes, it has to happen. So it was like in Guatemala, you know,

if, if, in your scenario, um, you just look at the kids in care, right? This is the first step, right? All the people running orphanages, like just just start figuring out where their families are. We know that 80% to 90% of them have families, right? And it requires a lot of professionals, a lot of practitioners, social workers, psychologists. And the majority of those families are not the kind of abusive situation that I described. You're saying that the main cause is simply poverty. I mean it might not be ideal. But it's not like a super toxic environment

it's just a poor family some of them will be so the 80-90% I'm talking about all kids who have families a good majority I'm going to say about 50% of that 80-90% it's going to be poverty and it's going to be how do we get your mom a steady job

how do we get your daddy a steady job how do we find a daycare facility so you're not left you know home alone how do we get you into a more stable housing environment the other 50 is going to be a little more complicated you're going to be looking at people who struggle with substance abuse um people who are abusive deal with anger whatever it is but those aren't lost causes either and this is like people organizations just have to be willing to put in the work it's like parents love their children i'm telling you i have sat face to face with like parents who have done things that you would say in your heart i would never and then you get to know them and then you hear their story and you hear how they were raised and you hear how the

trauma and the abuse it goes back six generations and how they didn't actually know that hitting their kids was bad, like beating them. Like, I mean, it's, it just comes down to education. Like, you know, we do parenting classes. You'd be amazed at the light bulbs that go off in these parenting classes where they're like, wait, I don't have to beat my kid. Like there, you know, it's like, so I would, even those cases where you're like man this one's complicated yes it is complicated but i would say even the majority of those kids and so here's the other thing too if kids can't go back with their biological parents that's all that's

a very real scenario there is other families so for like most of human existence this is how it worked when we lived in closer-knit communities right it's like if there's an issue with the family you go live with your aunt or you go live with your grandma or you go live with your second cousin. And so we, it's called kinship care, right? Like in, in orphan care. So like, then you start looking at kinship care. Like the reality is like, you start doing all of that and you're like, okay, if not kinship care, foster care, and then let's move to adoption. Like the reality is that there is just nowhere in the, we call it like the continuum of care. I would say with like a very, there's a very small, but, and that's for like kids with severe, severe, severe disabilities or like mental health issues who would potentially

benefit from like a clinical environment. But let's just like put that over to the side. That's a whole other conversation. The majority of kids kids in care they could either be reunified biological family but like mom and dad go to extended family if not that be placed in foster care and then if even after a time in foster care doesn't look like they could ever go home then that case moves to adoption and again this is a complex thing because then you can ask the question well what about you about the 16-year-old who is never going to get adopted? And then we've got to talk about aging out of care. But for the purposes of our conversation today, for most kids, there is a family option where institutional care can be avoided. But yes, the transition has to be slow and it has to be intentional and you have to make sure kids aren't falling through the cracks in the meantime.

Okay, so what about the countries you mentioned earlier where foster care is illegal or like the possibility of an alternative system being put in place is really meager to like impossible. Would you say that in those cases, orphanages are the only option? Like, I just, I'm thinking of somebody listening who was like, Oh my gosh, I'm giving money to an orphanage and I'm, I'm going to rethink that. But then if they look in and say, Oh, in this country, there's nothing else and no one else is doing anything different. So like, is that the lesser of the evils? I mean, would you say, or, um,

I mean, maybe for right now, but I don't think it's okay to continue with that. So there are so many like organizations or like that are this is what they do is they help other organizations work with their local governments like if there's so many resources out there where like if somebody was in a country where they're like hey foster care doesn't exist here but like what would it look like to start it like reach out to us to any not we would just probably connect you with somebody else who has more of like a global reach but there are these organizations who are doing that start it, like reach out to us, to any, not, we would just probably connect you with somebody else who has more of like a global reach, but there are these organizations who are doing that, like helping organizations transition their services. And it is a transition. It's not

switching one thing out for another. I think that's an important thing to think about. It's like, yes, you have this facility. Awesome. What could this facility be one day? Could it be a daycare facility? Could it be a rehab facility? Could it be a space where you host parenting classes and family nights out? And how can you like support these kids once they're home? How can you repurpose your funding, repurpose your facilities, repurpose your staff, right? Like this doesn't have to be like, all right, like throw this all in the trash. We've got to rebuild a new organization. It's like, what are you doing today? And what does it look like to move closer to supporting kids and family tomorrow?

Right. And maybe it's one kid. We figure out how to get that one kid home and then you go to the next kid and then you figure out how to go to systems and policies and the rest of it. But I would just say to people to be very wary of organizations who are not on that trajectory at all. And not not wary, like they're doing harm. But I would say, OK okay we need to have a conversation

right um you know and yeah is there financial motivations for the government to like do orphanages bring in a lot of kind of western income into the country like a more corrupt leader of certain countries could they say oh we ain't getting rid of these orphanages did these bring in resources is that yes and i hate talking about it it's like it makes you feel so just like heavy and burdened for the world but yes um i mean orphanages if you look at a map they are placed strategically in tourist hot spots and they will be i was reading a study in what spots i missed it would you say they're placed where in tourist hot spots, I was reading a study. In what spots? I missed it. What'd you say? They're placed where? Tourist hotspots. So I was reading a study, I think it was on like Cambodia yesterday where like something like the number

of orphans is like decreased by like 50% in the country in the last 10 years. But the number of orphanages has increased by 75%. I'm like butchering the numbers, but it was something shocking like that. And all of those orphanages are placed in tourist hotspots. So yes. So like I said, we're looking at, you know, billions of dollars just from short term missions alone, coming in to countries, because people are going to visit the orphanages. So, man, it's it's complex but yes there are like all these kind of incentives actually to kids and institutional care and the stakes are just too high though like

we're we're setting kids up for failure and I mean I told you the story of the fire and some kids are setting kids up for for death for you know not just abuse or like, you know, poor outcomes, but like their life is actually at stake. Um, yeah. Yeah. How do you, um, so let's, let's maybe go all the way back now with your organization. Now give us the elevator pitch. Like what do you do? I mean, you've kind of given us bits and pieces and stuff. So what is it that you now do now that you don't have an orphanage,

an orphanage that you're, that you're running? Yeah. So it's kind of like a dual approach. So we do prevention on the front end. So we have a family preservation program, which just means we have a whole team of psychologists and social workers who are dedicated to identifying vulnerable families in our community. So a lot of times those connections come through the church. We'll have somebody from the local church be like, hey, there's a family in our congregation. They're struggling. Sometimes

it'll be through CPS, like Child Protective Services, who will say, hey, we've had some calls about this family. Do you want to check in on them? It's totally voluntary on the family's part, but basically we come alongside them and say, hey, we know you don't want to be separated. We don't want you to be separated. What do you need? And, you know, our social workers do, you know, an in-depth study of their home and their family dynamics and their finances. And then we just provide services, scholarships, a free lunch program, a discipleship program, you know, individual counseling, family counseling, et cetera. It is the most exciting part of our

work. It's the hardest part to pitch to people because it's like, they're like, well, that looks like that looks like dependency. And I'm like, yeah, it does for a little bit. And that's kind of what families need. They need somebody they can depend on because actually a lot of times, like those moms and those dads, they have no family support system. Like that's the reason they're in the situation they're in is their own family history is so broken. Like they can't call their mom to come babysit. Like, um, you know, the families we support, they call our social workers and they'll just be like, Hey, how much ibuprofen do I give to my two year old? And those calls never seem to like amaze me. Cause I'm like, this is the only person you had in your phone to call

to ask that question. And it really is amazing. Just like, this is the only person you had in your phone to call to ask that question. And it really is amazing. Just like, but what happens when people like just the accountability of knowing somebody's there? Like, it's amazing the healing that's happening in some of those families because they're just like, hey, at least I know two people in the world care about how my family is doing. Right. So that's on the front end, um, family preservation and then on the back end. So obviously that's not the case for all children. Like you said, there are scenarios where kids are unsafe at home. And so we run a foster care program. So we are a private foster care agency partnering with the Guatemalan government. Um, and we, I mean, it's really

exciting because it really is like, and we can talk about this even, just like the church's role in all of this, in orphan care in general. We're really able to empower the local church. And it is really, really beautiful to watch, to watch them be like, you know, these are our kids, like the kids in our community. Like this, like this is biblical. Like we are supposed to stand in the gap, right? Like they're, um, and so we partner with local churches, recruit families, train them, license them, place kids in their care. And then we immediately start working towards reunification if it's possible.

So even once the child's in foster care, that's not a long-term solution, right? So our team tries to determine, okay, could this child go home eventually? And if not, we need to move towards adoption quickly because the longer they're in care, the less likely it is that they would be adopted. How do you deal with – and we're coming up on an hour, so I'll have to save my questions for a later time. But how do you deal with aftercare. This is something I've more recently been more in, I guess, in tune with that when somebody has been through childhood trauma, like it almost, the word trauma has been watered down today. Like my teacher yelled at me and I'm traumatized, but, um, but people who have been like, I mean, sexually abused, physically abused, especially sexual abuse, like at a young age,

At a young age, recovering from that is obviously not impossible. But man, the aftercare is – it takes a lot, a lot of just psychological unraveling. And yeah, and I've seen some organizations that – I don't know if they realize maybe the hard, ongoing, intense work that it takes to get somebody. They're actually going to live a flourishing life. I guess, first of all, would you agree with that, that recovering from childhood trauma is a massive under-touched area? And secondly, how do you go about that? Huge gap in service, like the aging out process and just yeah the the aftercare like you say um i mean we just need a lot more hands on deck just like globally um you know organizations

offering counseling services but here's what so the encouraging thing about all of this um because it can be just a real downer of a conversation right it's like you know you know kids shouldn't suffer why are they suffering and why are the systems in place to help them not working um but it really is amazing how god's designed our brain so like even just this is like recent in um like we've been able to study this from a scientific lens like there's the nature of it's called neuroplasticity like the ability of our brain to actually form new pathways based off of our experience right it's like the brain says okay you know if enough bad things happen it forms certain neural pathways if enough good things

happen to contradict that trauma it actually just starts rebuilding itself it's really amazing right um and so i would say there's two things that there's the the real like um just like people need professional services they need counseling like kids need to be if they've been you know spent any time in the child protective system like or just experienced you know family trauma in general it's like yes they need professional support but also they just need experiences that contradict their trauma so if trauma happens in the context of a relationship, the best way to contradict it is in the – or to heal is actually in this – through the same vehicle of relationship, which is why, like, man, when I talk to Christians who are, like, wanting to get involved, I'm like, find one kid in your community. It doesn't have to be foster care. I don't think everybody's called to foster. I don't think everybody is called to adopt,

but I'm like, but you should probably think long and hard about getting a little closer to this issue because healing happens. And the healing is so important because it's for that individual, but it's also generational. I'm telling you, like, you can look back, like, no, it is so rare for a kid to come into care and to get to look back at their family history and be like, weird, this came out of nowhere. I mean, this is like, this will continue to repeat itself as long as people are not experiencing true healing at a brain level, at a heart level, at a at a spiritual Jesus level like from their trauma but like that's going to happen in the context of relationship I I would say like when I think about especially you know teenagers and people who are who have just floated through the system

their whole life and have experienced abuse and sexual abuse and separation after separation maybe they've been in an orphanage or maybe in foster care, which, you know, is better than an orphanage, but it's still foster care. It's like, yeah, they just need people. They need mentors. They need people who will call them twice a week and who will like invite them into their lives and like help their brains understand, right. That they're like, you can have a new experience, right. You can exist in relationship with people and they're not always going to harm you. Um, that's what I've seen me be most effective is just like having experiences that contradict their trauma. And so, you know, I have a lot of like friends who are like kind of intimidated to like get involved in this. Like, so my husband and I,

we just, you know, we did this for eight and a half, nine years, 10 years in Guatemala. We just moved back to the States and we're,'re um we just wrapped up our licensing process to be a foster family and um so i still run the organization but we're also going to foster in our home and we're going to foster teenagers right um and people get so intimidated like i had a conversation with a friend the other day who's like she's like i just have to confess i don't like know how to talk to you about this because like my husband and i aren't gonna foster like we're just that's not what we're gonna do but like I feel like I need to do something I'm like oh my gosh yes like it doesn't have to look like one way like loving people well like loving people well and brokenness like looks like a lot of

different ways I'm like okay so when this kid comes into our home will you take him out to coffee twice a month and be a mentor and she's like well yeah what do you mean that's easy i'm like perfect like like that's it you know those are the like relationships and like the vehicle for those for those kids to actually start to heal alongside professional um people coming alongside them two more quick questions um people who have been maybe disoriented listening to this whole conversation are like, wow, well, I want to dig deeper. Can you recommend some resources, maybe books, articles, whatever for people to say, I want to look into this a little more? Yeah. Yeah. There's so much out there. So let me think of the best. So I would

say start with an organization called Faith to Action. They have been influential in our journey. Some of our team went through trainings with them. They are dedicated to basically just advocating for why family-based care is important, especially why the church should be advocating for family-based care. And they have some great resources on their website. So Faith to Action. Lumos is J.K. Rowling's foundation, and they do great work in the UK, I mean, around the globe, advocating. Their language is harsh. So if anyone's been listening to this and is like, yikes, that was harsh, maybe don't go straight to Lumos. They are very direct in saying never visit an orphanage, never fund an orphanage, but they back everything with research and their work is well done. So I would say faith action, start there and maybe head over to Lumo. Are there any books? What's the main book that's like – kind of like I mentioned offline, When Helping Hurts, kind of reshaped how people think about even poverty relief.

Is there a book that's like, oh, this is kind of the page Turner that would really disorient people's perspective. No, it may, it may be I'm ignorant. So hopefully if I'm wrong, somebody correct me. I cannot think I have not read, but, and I like, I scour the world for resources on this stuff. Um, so there are a lot of great like uh like scholarly resources out there you know like 30 page articles you can find online yeah um i can't think of a book somebody needs to write that book maybe you need to write it alicia yeah one day okay last question anybody's listening

that's really jazzed about what you're doing want to support you what what are your needs and don't be don't be shy like people are wanting to get alongside what people are doing. Do you have major endless financial needs? Do you have personnel needs? How can people help what you're doing? Yeah, pretty much endless financial needs, just being totally honest. We've had a hard time raising funds for our new model. We've struggled ever since we've shifted. People like child people like and we don't offer any sort of that like one-on-one connection with the people we serve we just don't think it necessarily is um promotes the dignity

of the individuals that we serve so yeah we're a streamlined organization we don't have like a big development team out there doing fundraising so So yeah, specifically what story is doing is interesting to you. Um, you know, fundraising is, um, funds, financial resources are our greatest need,

but, um, real quick, what's your website? I'll put it in the show notes, but what's the website? Yeah. Story.

I N T L. Dot org. State against story. What? I N T L. So story international, but you know, just like the.

Dot org. Okay. Story. I N T L. Dot org. I'm sure it but just like the....org. Okay, storyintl.org. I'm sure it's easy to find where people can give on there. Yes, it is. Cool. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time, Alicia.

My head's spinning. I mean, we talked offline, and I've already been kind of thinking in this direction. It started years ago when I started to rethink kind of short-term missions and the purpose of that. And just, um, it started years ago when I started to rethink kind of short-term missions and the purpose of that and just missions in general. I feel like there is kind of a residue of colonialism, kind of white savior mentality, um, that we need to reflect on. And I appreciate you said several times, you don't want to be harsh. You don't, you know, you don't want to make people feel bad or whatever. I guess the, you do bring a lot of credibility in that you're actually have done that approach and are still doing the work in a different way. So you're speaking from deep experience, which if I just sat here and says, Oh, we should do this, should

do that. That's people should take that with a grain of salt, but you have the experience and heart behind what you're doing. So I appreciate, I appreciate your humility and caution, but also yeah, speak the truth, you know, and, and, uh, I think you did that well. So I appreciate, I appreciate your humility and caution, but also yeah, speak the truth, you know, and, and, uh, I think you did that well. So thank you so much for your time. And I hope, um, this can be a tough conversation, but it's encouraging to me that this is even like people want to talk about this. You want to talk about this. I'm like, so convinced that like the church is the solution. I'm like, we just gotta, we just gotta tweak the model. We gotta, we gotta show some things like the heart is there. People are well-intentioned

and I continue to believe that. So thanks for this conversation. Thanks for asking great questions. Yeah. My pleasure. Yeah. Have a good day. All right. You too. Thank you.