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Making a difference

In 1972, Avis Rideout left Canada to keep a promise she made with God when she was six years old - to be a missionary. Now, 38 years later, she can be proud that she has kept that deal and Agape, the home she’s established in Chiang Mai for children affected by HIV/Aids, is a testimony to her dedication.

You don’t expect to turn up at an orphanage for nearly 90 children and find it relatively quiet, but it’s morning at Agape and the big kids are at school, leaving us with the babies and their nannies pottering around having a cuddle and a play before the children’s morning nap.

Agape is a home for children affected by HIV/Aids, and ‘home’ is the right word. The wide open spaces where the children run and play, surround an airy, clean and well-staffed building; fully equipped for the needs of children of all ages. We are soon joined by the woman at the centre of this incredible place, Avis Rideout. She’s an immediate buzz of positive energy, bursting with smiles and easy conversation; it’s not hard to see how this woman is the heart and soul of this home. She may be nearly 63, but Avis brims with vitality and youth. She immediately wants to know where I am from. “England? I’m from Newfoundland. My ancestors are from England, they were called Roberts before they came to Canada, see, and same weather as well, we might be cousins!” And therein lies her charm: you are immediately one of the family

Avis came to Thailand in 1972. “There was a teacher back in Canada who was coming out here to teach, I got to know her and managed to tag along. I was a tag along! I had very little education, but I taught English to students as a volunteer. I’m a missionary, that’s the drive. That’s why I’m in Thailand.” This first step led to the young Avis getting involved in setting up an education centre called the Sharon Centre in Bangkok.

In 1972, Avis Rideout left Canada to keep a promise she made with God when she was six years old - to be a missionary. Now, 38 years later, she can be proud that she has kept that deal and Agape, the home she’s established in Chiang Mai for children affected by HIV/Aids, is a testimony to her dedication.

Avis is big on dreams: “If you don’t have a dream you’re going nowhere. You can grow old at 30 or be young at 60, like I am. It depends on your goals and what you want to accomplish. I came from a fishing village, with eight in the family and was always told: ‘You’ll never go anywhere, you’ll never be anything.’ But I believe that can drive us to say: ‘Eh, we can do something. We can make a difference.’ I think that’s why I’m in Thailand today. I want to make a difference in the life of a child or an adult, especially with the work that I do with people affected by HIV, people that society thinks of as no value; I think God has given me such a need in my heart to make people believe that they are valuable, they are special, they are individuals. They’re not just orphans here, they’re not just HIV kids, and there is a future for them.”

Ever since Avis was a child she wanted to help out those less fortunate than herself. As a teenager she was assisting old people, doing their shopping and the like. “When I became 16 I made a commitment I would be different to the people in my community.” Avis lived in a small community of 300 people. “I would not sleep around with guys, I would not get pregnant.”

Avis is a committed Christian, but this is not the only thing which drives her. “They say: ‘Is it about religion?’ No, it’s about people who need to be loved and cared for and given an opportunity. They can choose what religion they want but at least give them a foundation in life, everything is so unstable, even in our own countries.”

Agape opened in May 1996, and was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for Avis. “My brother-in-law was the Mayor of Triton, the town where I lived, and he once said: ‘Avis, if you ever go overseas I’ll bill you the orphanage,’ but he died at 57 from cancer. But at least I felt that someone was onboard with what I was trying to do. He wasn’t a Christian man, he just wanted to have an input into society.”

So the dream was there, to be a missionary and have her own orphanage and adopt kids. “I got married to a man who didn’t want kids! Now we’ve adopted three kids and have three biological kids, and I have 87 kids here. I still desire more, there’s no going back.”

Before arriving in Thailand Avis was working in St Johns, Newfoundland, and would go out visiting places where others were afraid to go. “I was drawn to the places where people were dying of cancer. I would rub their backs and sing to them and watch them die. God, back then, was preparing me for what I do now. Aids and cancer, they are twins; they have the same system where your immune system is shot.”

After setting up the Bangkok education centre, Avis’s early missionary life took her to the full horror of the refugee camps on the border with Cambodia, where people were being driven out by the Khmer Rouge. “I was in that camp, I saw death every day, I was washing young girls and they were dying in my arms.”

Around that time Avis returned to Canada to marry her boyfriend, who then joined her in Thailand. “My kids were born here. They speak Thai, we’re Thai we’re just of a different color, that’s all.” After a year in Bangkok learning Thai, the newly weds were sent by their church to the north-east of Thailand, where they covered six churches.

“We were really happy doing what we were doing. We were fulfilled. Life is such a joy. We have mountains to climb, everyone does, and we need the wisdom to know how to climb. I’ll never be like a chicken scratching in the dirt. I want to be like an eagle. The eagle soars above it all, has its babies up there, and then in the altitude he just soars. I want to be like that.”

As the years went by Avis’s volunteering continued, with her often going into hospitals to help out where others feared to venture. It was on one such trip, to a hospital in Uthaithani province, in the early Nineties, where Avis discovered the little girl who would be the inspiration behind Agape.

Avis arrived at the hospital and found a room, the HIV room, right at the back of the building, because no one wanted to get involved and they were scared. What she found in that room had a profound effect on the already refuge-hardened missionary. Lying on the floor, all together on a plastic mat were six very sick, abandoned babies, barely cared for, untouched and unloved. The nurses were so scared of catching the virus that they only handled the children with rubber gloves. The babies were simply left there to die. Nikki was one of those babies.

And it was Nikki who was to become the seed that grew the phenomenon that is Agape. Avis and her husband took the sick baby Nikki into their home and gave her a chance at life. The abandoned dying baby is now in her teens and in excellent health having been adopted by Avis and her family some years ago.

Agape is a very special place, and the refuge it offers is not just for the children who are lucky enough to find themselves under Avis’s very wide wing. “The nannies I have here a lot of them are HIV and they wouldn’t be alive today if they weren’t here.”

Agape started life at a different site, which it rapidly outgrew. “I raised over a million dollars to build a new Agape. I just built five new homes for my teens, a place for them to be a family. It cost two billion baht per home. We have a mother and baby unit as well.”

When Agape first opened, many of the children didn’t live very long, but now it is very different. The children have a future and are looking at living long, happy and successful adult lives. Agape has expanded its educational facilities in order that all the children will get the education they deserve as well as the love and attention of a family-based existence.

“You have to live a selfless life. It’s not about me, and it’s about being here and helping people. I’m forever Chiang Mai; you see that culvert [out on the lawns] that’s where they are going to cremate me. I might die tomorrow. There is no future. You might not get out of the door. What you do today is what counts, tomorrow you might never see. I bought these extra large matches when I was last in Newfoundland - 250, and every child will get a match and a bottle of oil. I will be standing here and I will be cremated then.”

And she means it. But something tells me those matches will have to wait quite some time, for Avis. There’s far too much love that’s still needed.

How you can help!

Volunteer!

Agape has a long-term volunteer programs lasting three and six months, but there are also opportunities for anyone who wants to come along and get involved on an ad hoc basis.

Sponsorship

Check out the Agape website for details of the children who would benefit from a small monthly commitment.

Christmas

The kids at Agape love Christmas and every child deserves a present. If you want to donate towards the presents for this year’s celebration then get in touch.

http://www.nikkisplace.org/index.html

Text : Kate Joy
Images : Apirak