Q&A: Karissa Paterson shares how a church in Red Deer has changed thousands of lives overseas

Home of Hope (HoH) is a non-profit church-centred organization founded within Home Church in Red Deer. It is dedicated to providing care to children in developing nations in Africa. We sat down with Karissa Paterson, the Marketing Director and interim Operations Manager of Home of Hope, and asked how they can give hope to people in dire living situations. Her father, Brian Thomson, is the founder of HoH and the principal Operations Director.

Q: What is Home of Hope, and what is the idea behind it?

A: “In 2006, Brian Thomson travelled to Rwanda and learned about the genocide in 1994 and was the highest need for orphan care in the world. It was one in 13 kids that were orphaned in 1994. He got in contact with a friend who organized an orphanage in the country, started sponsoring orphans, and there HoH was born. And we’ve been helping kids ever since.“

Q: What’s the mission and the work that you do?

A: “We’re a non-profit, non-biased organization that’s helping thousands of kids with all kinds of projects like animal projects, child sponsorships and microloans. We have (Biblical) scripture that tells us to help the fatherless and lift the orphan out of the dust and place them on thrones.“

Q: What countries have HoH reached in the world?

A: “We started in Rwanda, then in Kenya in 2011 when we found out that babies were being thrown in the garbage. Then we had friends in Rwanda who had friends in the Congo (DRC), so we started helping there, too. We just got registered in Malawi this year, so we’re about to start there and attempting to help other countries in the future.“

Q: What problems plague these countries that you think we should know about?

A: “The big reason we started is because these countries have a lot of orphans. They do not have child protection services or anything to help them, so sometimes, people like their neighbours would bring them in.“

“There’s also quite a bit of homelessness with these kids, as young as six, who only own the clothes on their backs. Many also live in refugee camps, and they eat maybe twice a week. They’re so malnourished that they could die tomorrow.“

“The slums are probably the worst place on earth. There are 750,000 people crammed in just a few acres. It’s nothing you can understand without being there. The place is rampant with rape and incest, so the only solution for young women, as young as 12, is either abortion or throwing away their baby. We had people looking through the dumps looking for babies, and we’ve thrown up signs to tell people not to throw away their baby and call the Dream Centre, which houses the orphans. And to this day, we’ve been getting around 10-15 calls every day. We recently became the number one rescue centre in all of Kenya.”

Q: What kind of work do the teams do over there?

A: “We are trying to help (homeless) people to become self-sufficient, finding a place for them where they can sleep, and helping them with a job. We also feed 4,000 to 6,000 children a day through our feeding program; we even supply families with animals like goats. Our teams also visit the Dream Centre, where they visit the children housed there.”

Q: What have you learned and been able to take home from these experiences?

A: “I came home and decided never to waste anything again. Like, I don’t waste water and food, I recycle everything I can, and compost anything I can. It changed my mind on how to treat waste completely. I also came home and started a list of all the things I was thankful for, like clothes without holes and even having all of my fingers. I become thankful for where I was born, my family, and that I get to eat three times a day. Just listing everything down.”

Q: What effects do you see with people back home involved with the mission?

A: “As an example, we have this woman who’s been going through a life transformation lately, but the kicker for her was when she started sponsoring one of the rescued babies. Basically, knowing that he would not be alive today if HoH didn’t exist, she was so emotional, and she’s a better person for it. So I know people back home who sponsor a kid through HoH has impacted their lives for the better.

Q: What can people back home do to support HoH?

A: “The easiest way is free. Go on social media and share! Just awareness is a big thing that we want people in Canada knowing more about a local charity that has an international impact. The number two way is by donating, to sponsor a child every month, to donate animals to the animal project, and towards an education fund for the children. They also have a present need fund when we have an emergency need; some people give to that every month. And anyone can go on a mission trip and see it for themselves.”

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