Bethany Home orphanage is divided into 2sections. One section for girls and one sections for boys. The orphanage is constantly expanding and often get requests to take in more children from different villages. Many of the children are in bad shape when they arrive at the orphanage but most of them are able to adjust from the life in the villages to life at the orphanage in a very short time. As we witnessed when we've visited them ourselves as well as read in reports from the leaders the children are thriving.


The leaders of Bethany Homes are the German couple Manuela and Olaf, they've been working at the orphanage since the spring 2001. They are sent out by and international organization "Homeless Children International". All the running costs of the orphanage comes through donations and longs distance adoptions/sponsorship. Sponsorhip of the children is done by Open Hands and Church members in Bergen, Norway, and some from England and Germany.

They bought the land last in November 2004 and building start was late 2005. The new home consists of three different houses. First house for girls where finnished May 2006, the second spring 2007 (home for leaders, kitchen). Instead of building the last home for boys, they now plan to buy the neigborour house next year. 
been brought in to stabilise the ground before rainy season . Because of the rainy season building can not be started until around October when it is over.


The children at Grace Home do not have Thai citizenship even if they are born in Thailand. In order for them to attend college and work, the Thai government requires Thai citizen and  ID-card. Not having these is one of the the reasons why so many children and young people end up in very low paid jobs, prostitution and/or drugs. The leaders at Grace Home made this a priority and by working intently they were able to get ID-cards for all the children at the orphanage. Thereby opening the door for the children to apply for Thai citizenship when they turn 15 years old. Currently four of the girls Seng, Noi, Chirapha and Jing Koo have received their Thai citizenship 

Orphanage in Tachileik. Open Hands first got to know this orphanage through a norwegian missionary couple during our missionary outreach November of 2003. In January of 2005 Open Hands was asked to start facilitating log distance adoptions from this Orphanage. At present time (November 2007) they are housing 104 children, who is living in four different houses. Open Hands have sponsors to 54 children. The leaders for three of the homes are Solomon and Heidi (from Switzerland) and Thomas(German) and Ester the fourth home.

Orphanage Huay Maw, N-Thailand. During our visit in 2003 we also visited this orphanage. These children are very poor, around 50% have no parents and many have lost their relatives in war, Burma. Many children suffers from traumatics experiences when loosing their parents. They don`t receive any support, other than rice monthly from an organisation in MaeSai. The sanitary situation and water supply are very bad and need to be upgraded. The leaders, pastor Judah and wife are struggling for keeping the co-workers at the Orphanage, as they have no support for salery payment. Open Hands have therefore started to send mothly support for payment the co-workers. At time beeing we have no sponsorship program, but need partners giving an amount of Nkr.150/mnth pr child. As pr 1.November 2007 there are 122 children staying at this orpanage.

Orphanage "Hope for Life", Mae Sai, N-Thailand. This orphanage was founded 27 April 2007 with 15 children, 9 boys and 6 girls, age 6 - 11. At present time (November 2007) they are housing 22 children. Open Hands started facilitating log distance adoptions in May 2007, and have pr.November 9 sponsors. The leaders are Thomas og Ester (Solomon`s sister). They are also leaders of one of the homes in Tachileik, Burma.

Open Hands have a great need for people wanting to do long distance adoptions from House of hope orphanage. If you would like to do this please click "contact" on the next page.