Where It All Begin

To the casual viewer, this picture probably doesn't mean much. This tree is just another tree and this building is just another building. But to one man, this is a place filled with memories and significance. It is the birthplace of an encounter with God that was beginning of something great. This place was once an orphanage where the kids were treated very poorly. That tree was an escape from the darkness inside to the outside world where a little boy could roam free. This boy was Ravi Manda, the brother I know today as Thomas Mollhagen.
Over the past few years I have had to opportunity to get to know Thomas and have heard his story on many different occasions. I knew that as a child he spent many years getting tossed between different orphanages with his brother Peter. I knew that he was adopted by a family in Grand Rapids and returned to India later in his life to reconnect with his biological parents. I knew that his heart was moved upon seeing the plight of many children here and founded what we know today as Open Arms For Asia.

Even in knowing all those things, I never really understood the significance of his story until now. While in Hyderabad we visited a few of the orphanages that Thomas had been in. We walked on the same streets he has walked on as a boy. We went into the same buildings he had lived in. I saw with my own eyes the places that are in his stories. I was at the place that Thomas was when he first cried out to God to save him from that orphanage. It became real. I saw a glimpse of the struggle that he went through. I saw how each struggle and every ounce of pain was for a purpose. That purpose is to serve these children. If Thomas had not experienced what he did and lived the life he had, he would in no way be prepared to serve in the capacity he does. His testimony gives him a place in the lives of these kids that no one else can have. He is able to empathize with them. He understands where they are coming from. What a powerful story of the goodness of God in the midst of so much pain. We give Him the glory.