by Jasmine Jacobs
Executive Director, REACH International

Our story starts in the summer of 1973 when my husband and I took a trip to India and Sri Lanka to acquaint our pre-teen children, Cheryl and Mark, of their roots. Because we did not want to spend money and time just on sightseeing we volunteered our services to the Southern Asia Division to conduct in –service education workshops for their teachers. We held 10 three-day workshops from Amritsar in the North of India to Kanniya Kumari at the southern tip, as well as, one in Sri Lanka. To do them we traveled from workshop to workshop by train, bus, horse drawn carts, cycle-rickshaw and taxi. This gave us a good opportunity to move among the ordinary people and the poor people of India. What we witnessed in those ten weeks we cannot forget. Our lives were changed forever.

As we traveled through the cities, towns and villages of Southern Asia we found His foot prints everywhere. “We shall find footprints beside the sickbed, in the hovels of poverty, in the crowded alleys of the great cities, and in every place where there are human hearts in need of consolation.” MH p.106. We were appalled by the poverty, misery, hunger, sickness, starvation and death. We saw starving, emaciated children dying slow miserable deaths. Many of the children born on the street, eke out an existence on the street, and finally die on the street never knowing the comfort of a home. Home to them is a spot on the sidewalk marked off by a rope or a chalk line or even a stone to indicate their space and let others know it is taken. They feel lucky to have a piece of plastic to protect them from the rain. All their earthly belongings could be tied into one small bundle and carried in one hand. Were these our brothers? Did not Christ die for them too?

In silent horror we watched an emaciated mother cradle her naked dying child to her shriveled breast and try to squeeze out a drop of milk into his open mouth. He did not have the strength even to suck, nor did she have any milk to give. Another mother, after having fed a few mouthfuls of rice to her hungry children, say by the roadside licking the empty pot to try to satiate her own hunger. One father of eight told us, “My one desire is to be able to feed my children at least one meal till they are full and satisfied.” These images are still vivid in my memory. Even after twenty-six years I see them as if it were yesterday.

We saw children eating out of garbage cans, and when we gave them bananas they ate the banana and then the peel. How hungry do you have to be to eat banana peels? We gave a sack lunch that someone had given us to a man lying on the filthy railway platform too sick and weak even to move. He had been so long without food, he could not keep the food down. In the midst of such poverty, sickness, starvation, misery, death and hopelessness our thoughts were, “if not for the grace of God we could be like them.” What had we done to merit the good life? We had health, wealth and happiness. We had been materially blessed, they had nothing.

All this poverty, sickness, sadness and suffering made an indelible impression on our children and us. Are they also children of God, our brothers and sisters? Do we have a responsibility to them? “We are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the suffering and afflicted. We are to minister to the despairing, and to inspire hope in the hopeless.” MH. P.106.

When we did a workshop in Bangalore, India, we saw a group of elementary school children that looked well cared for. We learned that they were being cared for by an organization called the Christian Children Fund. The children were given school uniforms, books, tuition and a meal. Our minds raced! We began to question. Why could not the Adventist Church do something like that, and help poor children, not only physically, mentally, but spiritually as well?

When we returned home we spoke to a few church leaders and did not get much encouragement. We could not let it rest, we began to question. Who is the church? The church is us! We cannot expect the organized church to do everything. We must do something to help these poor children. Eventually it will affect the overall growth of the church. These were radical thoughts twenty-six years ago. Then there were no independent ministries. Just the thought scared some people. These days independent ministries are almost a fad. We were a Supporting Ministry even before the General Conference drew up the guidelines for Independent Supporting Ministries.

Someone has said, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” That is exactly what we did. We acted on our thoughts and called together some friends who had been to India and knew first hand the extent of human suffering in that country, or were sympathetic to the needs of poor children.

On October 14, 1973, this group met at our house on 8888 Meadow Lane, Berrien Springs, Michigan and organized and selected a Governing Board. Since I was the visible moving force they elected me to be the president, Dr. Edwin Buck Jr., Vice-president and Wilma Moore was Secretary-Treasurer. At the second meeting the acronym REACH, Render Effective Aid to Children, International, was chosen as the name. Now we had a name but we needed to formulate by-laws, working policies, a mission statement and a record keeping system. We had no prior experience. Within that first year God helped us to register the organization in Michigan, and receive Federal tax-exempt status under 501(c)(3). Now we were able to receive a license to solicit.

We had an organization, but how do we reach the children? God had set the wheels in motion even before we got to that point. That summer in Bangalore we had made friends, Ron and Dorothy Watts. We had stayed with them in their home and were intrigued when we met their three adopted Indian street children. They told us the story of how they acquired the two brothers and the girl. We were touched, inspired and amazed at the love these people had for the children and the sacrifice they were willing to make. Soon after this Pastor R. D. Watts, then president of South India Union, came to Andrews for six months of studies. In order to repay his kindness to us, we invited him to our home for a meal of rice and curry. During the conversation we told him about what we were planning to do. His face lit up as he said, “I cannot believe God is answering my prayer so quickly. On the plane I was praying for just something like this, a way to help more of the poor suffering children in India.”

He readily offered to help us find the children who most needed help. Our last problem was solved and we thanked God for His guidance. Pastor Watts sent us sixty-eight children from a very poor village called Puliangudi. In this village there was a dilapidated vacant school building that belonged to the church. A school was started there for these children. It took us all year to sponsor the sixty-eight children for $12.00 a month.

An embryo of an office was set up in the basement of our house. Wilma bought a ledger and a receipt book and manually made all the entries and wrote the receipts from her home across the street from mine. Meanwhile I started a system to register the children and keep their records straight. The Print Shop at Oak Heaven, Michigan, a self-supporting institution, printed us some bright green information cards for the children and black and white folders for the sponsors, without charge. Andrea Steele, of AWA fame was at the Lake Union office and designed the first application, which was also our first advertisement. For the first seven years of our existence, volunteers did all the work, and all $12.00 went to support the children. The expenses of the organization came out of our pockets. Neighbors and friends spent many a Sabbath afternoon, all over the floor of our basement alphabetizing, labeling, sticking stamps and sorting for bulk mailing. We have fond memories of those days.

By 1979 we could not personally finance it any longer and the board voted to raise the sponsorship to $15.00 and use $1 for administrative expenses. We gave the option to the sponsors to choose to give that $1 to us if they could. By then the work was just too much to be done on our spare time so we started to hire part-time student labor to get the work done. Everything was done manually; computers were not on the scene for us as yet.

From this small beginning in 1973 Reach has grown and expanded into 23 countries, 8 branch offices and nearly 24,000 children are getting an education, live in safe and secure surroundings, eat three meals a day and also learn about the Jesus who loves them. Many children who grow up in our schools accept Jesus as their personal Savior. Wherever we go, especially in India, we meet former REACH students in responsible positions in the work of God. They thank us and you, the sponsors, for the help that made the difference for them. And what a difference that is! Only in Heaven will we know.