Dave Atkins, formerly of Lexington, holds a Cambodian baby. (Submitted photo)
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To learn more about Asia's Hope, go to www.asiashope.org.
LEXINGTON -- With help from churches and caring people around the world, Dave Atkins' dream has come true.
The 1971 Lexington High School graduate and former Lexington Grace Brethren Church pastor is CEO of Asia's Hope, founded in 2001 "as a grass-roots, non-denominational initiative. Asia's Hope works to mobilize resources within the Western church to help innovative, indigenous ministries meet spiritual, physical and educational needs among Asia's poor."
The Wooster man said the venture was one he never expected to take on.
"People my age, we kind of put Southeast Asia out of our minds -- because it meant thinking about the Vietnam War," Atkins said. "Those were not pleasant memories. As a pastor, I did a lot of mission trips all over the world, but most mission trips are not taken to Asia. You'll typically just hear of people going to the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Haiti."
In the early '90s, Atkins said, the word "Asia" kept running through his head.
"It was weird," he said. "I tried to ignore it because I didn't know what it meant. I just kept hearing 'Asia, Asia.' I prayed to God and said, 'What are you asking me to do?' "
At the time, Atkins was pastor at Grace Brethren.
"I told the director at the time, Tom Julien, that the next time he went to Asia, I wanted to come with him," he said. "In 1995, he called me and said he was going to Cambodia."
Atkins went along.
"I was not prepared for what I saw," Atkins said. "I've seen the big stomachs and the starving people, but this just broke my heart. Everywhere we went, I saw death, dumps and starving orphans. The people there don't know how to stop having babies. The whole place looked like a giant preschool. The infant mortality rate there is the highest in the world."
Atkins said half the population is younger than 17.
"I thought, what can I do? I live in Lexington, Ohio," he said. "But God doesn't focus on what we can't do. He focuses on what we can do. I believe the only answer to poverty is people recognizing God and Jesus Christ."
Atkins decided he was going to help pastors.
"I promised God I would go back every year for two weeks to help pastors in Cambodia," he said.
And from 1996 to 2001, that's exactly what he did.
"From year to year, I noticed the country slowly beginning to recover," he said. "Then in 2001, I met a guy from Columbus named John McCollum, who had adopted kids from Vietnam and from Korea."
When McCollum learned Atkins went to Cambodia every year, he decided to go along.
"After our first trip, John said to me, 'Dave, you can't keep doing this every year,' " Atkins said. "He said, 'Look at all these orphans. How can you just leave each time?' I told him I work 70 hours a week as a pastor and helping drug addicts. I couldn't possibly do more than what I was already doing."
But McCollum wouldn't let up.
The pair began meeting in Mansfield to brainstorm.
"After eight meetings, I decided to form an organization called Asia's Hope," Atkins said. "I would help orphans in three ways: Spiritually, by introducing them to Jesus Christ. I would help them meet their educational needs and I would help them meet their physical needs, with food and putting clothes on their backs."
By the summer of 2001, Asia's Hope was incorporated, but still lacked funding.
"I sent letters to relatives and to people I knew through being a pastor and asked for donations," he said.
By the fall of 2002, Atkins had raised enough money to open his first orphanage in Cambodia.
"By the time I actually got to see the orphanage up and running, it was four days into its opening," he said. "We had 10 kids. I hugged each of them. I could have died right then and there, I was so happy."
Next, Atkins started student centers for poor college students. In 2003, he had enough money to start a Christian school in Cambodia.
"One of the first local schools that helped us was Mansfield Christian School," Atkins said. "They would box up materials and send money. It was wonderful."
Atkins said former Mansfield Christian band director Graham Geisler volunteered to travel to Cambodia with him a few times.
"He got so smitten with Cambodia, he quit his job in '07 and moved to Cambodia to teach," he said.
Despite his accomplishments, Atkins wasn't done.
"God seemed to be saying to me, 'It's nice what you've done here in Cambodia, but the word I gave you was 'Asia,' " he said. "In '04, I was speaking to a church in Ashland and at the end, a guy walked up to me, and said he was from Thailand, and asked if I would go there."
In 2005, Atkins opened an orphanage for the hill tribes in northern Thailand.
By 2008, Asia's Hope had created 14 orphan homes and had partnered with churches all over the United States and Canada. Churches commit to a monthly sum of money to keep the orphanages running.
The largest donation came after a youth conference in November at Cedarville University in Goshen, Ind.
After Atkins spoke about Asia's Hope and told the 2,000 teenagers that it cost $30,000 to sponsor an orphanage, the kids immediately took up an offering and raised $60,000.
Former New England Patriots football player Je'Rod Cherry, who had attended the conference with kids from his church, decided to donate his Super Bowl ring from the Patriots' victory over St. Louis in Super Bowl XXXVI, to Asia's Hope.
The ring's estimated value is $35,000. The ring was raffled online and raised nearly $200,000.
In 2009, Atkins said he hopes to start opening up orphanages in Vietnam.
"I never dreamed in a million years for all this," Atkins said. "I've met kings and princes from different countries, but I'm still just a knucklehead from Lexington, Ohio."
jkinton@nncogannett.com 419-521-7220
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