This post was written by Dr. Kenneth Acha, president of Servants University, and founder of the Kenneth Acha Foundation, a nonprofit orphan care and poverty alleviation organization. He shares his insight and heart about orphan care, formed by 10 years of personal experience.
Who needs training to start an orphanage? That’s a common feeling that people have. We felt like that when we started our orphanage in Africa. A good heart doesn’t equal to help for orphans. Believe us, we are speaking from experience. We have seen people hurt poor people (especially orphans) and themselves when they are working hard and doing what they think is best to help the poor.
“There is a way that appears to be right, but, in the end, it leads to death.” Prov. 14:12
In other words, what you think is the right road may lead to death. So, let us not be too confident that we don’t pause to learn. On the contrary, we should not allow this to cause us to be too afraid to serve the poor. God has not given us a Spirit of fear but of love, power, and a sound mind. When we labor and pursue the right things in the right way, even if we sometimes fall, the Holy Spirit will lead us to success. Note that doing things right is righteousness.
There is a proverb that says, “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” (Prov. 19:2)
The NLT renders this verse as: “Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good; haste makes mistakes.” That proverb is so true. It is very easy to have a vision for serving orphans. Then, we become very passionate and jump into it without proper training. Before we know it, that passion burns out, and then we give up. Often, we are very frustrated. Even when we succeed after making too many mistakes early, the orphans miss out on the great potential that we have that is lost and settle for the little success that we have attained simply because we made the mistake of not getting proper training. But this can be avoided.
If you are starting an orphanage because you feel God is calling you to serve, you are doing a great thing. But starting an orphanage to serve orphans in God’s name (because God sent you) makes you a man or woman of God, even if you wouldn’t call yourself that. Working for God is not only about good work; it is spiritual warfare, and Satan will do everything in his power to frustrate the work. Satan doesn’t want orphans to be served. He wants them to remain in bondage. So, going out to serve orphans is going to battle with Satan. You need to be trained and ready to spend time interceding and praying for the orphans that you serve. You also need to intercede for the work to really have a meaningful effect on the children. You want it to glorify God.
Going out to serve orphans is going to battle with Satan.
Servants University is the first institution in the world to offer training in orphan care. As of right now, they are the only ones that we know that offer full training programs in that area. Â If you find any training resources that could help someone start an orphanage or run an existing one better, please contact us and share them so that we can add them to this site to help others. We need to share information to help others serve orphans better!
Servants University offers several certificate and degree programs designed to train people to serve orphans and poor people. These programs can teach a person the important things they need to start and run an orphan care organization. Click here for more on SU’s Orphan Care Training Programs.
