Dear friends,

Our family is now nearing the end of our furlough in Canada. We have put over 25,000 km on the van we purchased for our travels and have been overwhelmed at the response of people all over Canada to the children of Zimbabwe and the Village of Hope.

If there was one verse that sums up the last 5 months, it would be Ephesians 4:16 … "From him (Christ) the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." NIV In my Bible, and beside this verse, I have drawn the way I picture this verse – a net – that lifts, holds, sustains, and supports all in the family.

You see the Village of Hope is not just the buildings or the feeding program, or the growing staff. It is not acreage in Zimbabwe that is thousands of miles away. But instead it is the mother in Ontario that is knitting slippers to sell to benefit the Village each evening after her children go to bed; it is the couple here that gave up one of their 2 salaries for a month and sacrificed for children they have never met in such a significant way; it is the Missions Coordinator who faithfully took newsletters and sent them out to the congregation over email, posted them on a bulletin board and highlighted prayer items for corporate prayer on a Sunday morning. Those prayers sustain us and ‘make a way’ for the Village of Hope and it’s children!

The Village of Hope is the 13 year old who gave up his TV for 5 months so our family could hear news and be entertained in quiet moments in Canada; it is the Pastor that made time to have coffee, encourage us and ask what more they could do to help and then carried through on it; and it is the businessman that matched donations on a fundraising night to ensure a new Children’s home was built! It is the Canadian Zimbabweans who took the work to heart; the 30 people that gave up days and a Saturday night to cook for, organize and run a dinner and auction to benefit the Village; and a child that was sponsored for reading books with all proceeds dedicated to the children we serve! It is the Sunday school class that raised money for bunkbeds (God bless each quarter coin!); and the Missions Convention that ensured Cornelius Hope Academy Primary School would have computers for its students to have a world-class education.

The sacrifices these people and so many more have made, speak of a global committment to the body of Christ. To pray and support those we have never met. We do not exist without one another!

It is because of all of you reading this that we are excited to announce the following developments over the last 2 months at the Village of Hope in Zimbabwe…

Orphanage Registration amendment has been received allowing us to increase our capacity from 24 to 56 resident children.

This means we can now open up the 3 new Children’s homes built last year! We have also been cleared for taking in babies!

This last week, the Village of Hope welcomed our first babes!

Pictured above, our new VOH babies:

- Tapiwanashe at one month old. In the Shona language this means ‘we were given by the Lord’.

- Nicole at 4 months old (pictured with new Housemother Margaret), and

- Jerry at 2 & 1/2 years.

Secondary School Registration has been granted!

Cornelius Hope Academy Secondary School will be built and established through 2010.

- Permission has been granted to begin teaching SS on the VOH premises without dedicated classrooms.

This will allow us time to build a first set of classrooms through 2010 dedicated to a high school and the practical subjects it will need. God is good!

PRAYER REQUESTS

- For more housemothers with God’s call on their lives.

- For continued strength and wisdom for our Administration team who continue to look after things so well in our absence. We praise God for their lives!

- For Tapiwanashe, Nicole and Jerry as they adjust to their new life at the Village.

- For our family, as we prepare to return to Zimbabwe February 24th, and leave our eldest son in Canada to prep for College.  This is a new phase of life for us.

We thank you for your prayers and support – for being that net! We thank God for making a way once again!