It’s been eight years since Mike Yap first thought about starting an orphanage in the Philippines.

He’d heard the stories of abandoned babies found washed up on the ocean shore and discarded at trash sites. Yap’s parents were born and raised in the Philippines, and though he was born and raised in America, the pull to his ancestral land was strong.

His dream took a backseat to life’s trials for several years. Yap lost his home to foreclosure during the recession and was forced to move his family halfway across America to start over.

Still, the idea of helping Filipino orphans chipped away at him.

Perseverance eventually paid off for Yap, of Kalispell. On June 21, the nonprofit ministry he started will open the doors to the first orphanage to serve the capital city of Kalibo in the province of Aklan, in the northwest area of Panay Island.

“God has a heart for children and I do too,” the father of eight said. “They’re precious, and you never know how one child can affect the world.

“My vision is that this orphanage will be the first of many to open there,” he said.

Yap, who was raised a Christian, said he first discovered the plight of Filipino orphans in 2004. UNICEF estimates there are about 1.8 million orphans in the Philippines.

There are several reasons for the high number of orphans there, Yap said. As a dominantly Catholic nation, abortions are illegal in the Philippines, “so there’s a lot of shame and unwanted pregnancies,” he said. Pregnant girls often are sent to live with relatives or friends and babies simply are abandoned if care can’t be found.

“It’s also a poor nation,” Yap said. “The government doesn’t have a lot of money for [orphanages].”

According to the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, the country is a “diverse archipelago made up of thousands of islands, which makes it difficult for federal and local governments to reach the children in need living in remote coast, island and mountain villages.”

Poverty is rampant there, with close to half the population living on less than $2 a day.

Yap set his sights on Aklan, where his parents are from and where they now reside in their retirement. In 2006 he contacted officials there about starting an orphanage and got the paperwork needed for the project.

He and his wife Sylvia and their children were living in California when the recession hit particularly hard. When they lost their home they relocated to the Flathead Valley where one of their daughters lives.

“Adjusting to the life-altering challenges of a major move and trying to make sense of it all, the orphanage project came back to mind and I decided to find out once and for all if the project was something that God wanted me to pursue,” he said.

Two years ago he journeyed to the Philippines to resolve the issue.

“Either God would open the doors or he would close them,” Yap said.

And that’s about the time God took the lead, he said. Within weeks of arriving in the Philippines, Cross Point Ministries Aklan was created.

Yap took a second trip to the island last year to begin connecting with the community and the puzzle pieces began falling into place. A house adjacent to the property acquired for the orphanage was donated to the ministry.

The Cross Point board decided to use the house as an interim home for orphans while money is raised to construct the orphanage’s main building. Fundraisers were successful in pooling the money needed to renovate the home, he said.

“I have a pretty solid board over there,” Yap said. “Right now God is bringing on Christians” with varying aspects of expertise needed to launch the project.

The ministry recently got its nonprofit approval from the Internal Revenue Service to enable Cross Point Ministries International to be the fundraising vehicle for the orphanage.

Yap said financial needs are three-pronged:

• Project Jump Start will raise operational funds for one year by trying to find at least 100 people to donate $30 a month.

• The organization is raising $5,000 for materials and supplies for the home, which include staples such as cribs, diapers, formula, furniture and a used vehicle.

• The Cornerstone Project is an effort to raise $150,000 to begin building the main orphanage complex.

“I am taking all this one step at a time and I’m overwhelmed by all the support that has come from the Flathead Valley,” Yap said.

More information about the project is available online at www.crosspointorphans.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/crosspointministries. Donations can be sent to Cross Point Ministries, P.O. Box 7143, Kalispell, MT 59904.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.