What is in a name?

I was talking with an educator with a missions organization this week and he had an interesting question.   “Why do you refer to the children’s portion of your mission as a “children’s home” instead of a “child development center”?

He went on to point out that the services we are providing are more in line with a child development center.  The areas where we differ that would normally come under that description are that we do not have licensed teachers and that the older students help the younger students as well as the preschool children with their learning.

Another difference is that we do not charge for the services nor do we pay the people helping at the children’s home.    Additionally, we are not a government registered agency.   While these details are important to the government in the USA, in the Philippines, this is not a significant factor.   Down the road, when the vocational/technical school is open, students can potentially help with the children.

So, what is the most accurate description?   That is not something that we have spent a lot of time discussing.  There was a need and we started meeting that need with the resources available.   However, we will be certainly considering this question since as it was pointed out, better accuracy in our description will likely help us share about our mission with others.