As part of the team of men who went to Zimbabwe in June - I was amazed by the work being done to make a difference in the country of Zimbabwe by the Village of Hope and their work with children. One of the things that I discovered in working with them is that they don’t have a website to promote what they are doing and provide an information/communication portal for their current and potential supporters. I decided to donate my services to design and host the website because I believe so strongly in the work the Village of Hope is doing.

So without further ado, I’m announcing the launch of the brand new website for the Village of Hope in Zimbabwe (vohzimbabwe.com).

Coincidently, that is why there’s been some inactivity on this blog lately (and also why development of the Organize Series Plugin has been stalled)…

Hi folks, Well we’ve been back for a couple of days and have had a chance to begin showing some pictures and sharing about our experiences with our families. It’s nice that it hasn’t been too hot - it’s given us a chance to adapt back to the Canadian Summer after being in the Zimbabwe Winter ;).
One more thing you all can keep in prayer if possible. Scott’s camera went missing while on the trip and there were quite a few picture on it that he would have liked to be able to share with his family. If you can pray that it’ll turn up at the village that’d be much appreciated!

Today was the final “work” day here in Zimbabwe. We worked in the morning on the school block and just about finished getting all the walls up to the level where the gable ends get attached. The progress made in the week here was phenomenal and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to be a part of building this school block that will be of such importance in the education of the children here.
Another important part of this week was the opportunity for us to get to know the contracted workers who will continue to build while we are gone. At the beginning of the week we were strangers and at the end of the week we’re friends. There has been an exchange of addresses and some of the workers are pretty adamant that they are going to come to Canada some day! Considering the difficulty for them in getting a passport and the huge cost for them to make the trip the reality of this happening is pretty slim. However, they will be most welcome if they make it
The names of the men we worked with are: Tir Ivaviri Chimeri (foreman), Maute Taruberekerr, Kelvin Kanyemba, Chirasha Artweii, Simon Mashash, Albert Gapu, Marake Ngwende, Jimiel Mahenga, Fidelis Mukarati, Luckstar Chikunda, Brown Nyambo, and Simon Kangara. One of the things many of our crew noticed were the awful shape some of the footwear of these workers was in - one of the workers had no footwear at all.. Through the week our guys compared shoe sizes and today some of our guys made a gift of their boots to those men who could use them the most. It was incredibly moving moments - especially as Doug, Kevin and Alex walked back from the job site in their bare feet.
Following the work day we threw a Zimbabwe Brii (prounounced Brye) which is the Zimbabwean equivalent of a Canadian BBQ. James and myself cooked steak while the guys finished up and then we shared a final meal with the workers. It was a great way to culminate our time together.
This was the final work day for us in Zimbabwe. However we still have plans to visit an orphanage next week - more on that in future updates.
This evening we went to Gord and Anita Cooledge’s house and joined in with a dinner with many of the people that we’ve spent time with this week. We also got a chance to meet three other missionaries who are in Zimbabwe - Gary and Marvelyn Schell and Cecilia Paluch. Gary is the Academic Dean at Pan African Christian College in Harare and Cecilia oversees the Child Care Plus program for all of Zimbabwe. It was great meeting them and learning a little bit about what they do here as well.
As part of the evening we held a “Canadian Birthday Party” for Gord. His birthday wasn’t today but it is coming up soon and we wanted to celebrate it before leaving. We presented him with a special mug from home and inside the mug Barry included some headache pills… a fun and useful gift hehe.
Today’s pictures:
1. Sitting in “the Green Monster”: We’ve dubbed our ride that we take every day to the Village, “The Green Monster”. It is a green colored pickup that has a covered bed and 7 of us ride in the back while 1 of us sits up front. It sucks us in in the morning and spits us out at the Village! We’ve given it that name because the fumes in the back are pretty strong and we feel every bump and jolt along the way. Even though it is a tough ride we are still grateful for it and aren’t really complaining about it - it’s just become a running joke with us as we prepare for the ride to and fro from the village. Our driver Mr. Chedokwa is a really nice guy and we’ve enjoyed getting to know him over the week. We also greatly appreciate the time he is taking to come and pick us up and deliver us where we need to be.
2. The School Block work Crew: This picture was taken from the rooftop of a school block that is almost finished. It includes our team and the work crew we did the construction with this past week. You can also see the progress we made.
3. A bigger picture of the construction project: We estimate that we laid about 9,000 bricks in this past week. We actually probably moved around close to 12,000 bricks. It is amazing to see the pile of bricks that had been dropped off shrink over the week. Originally, it was this massive amount that was intimidating to say the least, but now most of it is in place as part of the new school block. It was a tremendous feeling of accomplishment for us as a team to look at the work that had been completed over the past week and the relationships we got to make with the work crew. We can’t wait to see the pictures of the finished school block when it is done!
Well, that’s it for today’s report!
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This update will be short and sweet - we had a late night tonight and I can barely keep my eyes open. Also, we’re getting up at 6am to get an early start on our last work day tomorrow so I want to make sure I get at least a few ours of sleep What the guys did:
- Kevin went to preschool in the morning.
- Doug and James went to the plots in the morning.
- Barry did a devotion with the VOH staff in the morning.
- The rest of us continued to work on the school block
- I spent some time in the morning with Pastor Zowa going over Sunday morning’s Service and praying with Him for Sunday.
- Barry, Chris, Kevin and James participated in the after-school program today and were teaching the kids how to play baseball.
- Barry and Alex participated in a radio intervview by CFOS
- We all had supper at house number 1 of the orphanage and what a supper it was! We had a blast meeting with the kids and learning about them. They took our cameras and took pictures all over the house.
I’m about to fall off the couch and drop the laptop from exhaustion - I’m just going to attach the pictures for now.
Picture #1: Is a picrture of the Zimbabwe Construction crew we worked with while here - they were an awesome bunch to work with!!
Picture#2: Here’s the kids from the plots receiving some toys that we passed out as gifts today.
Picture #3: Here’s a picture of one of the “better” houses found on the plots.
Picrture #4: Here’s a picture of where we are in the construction equity.

Greetings again! Well today, we had a change in weather. It was cloudy and overcast. Kind of surprising really considering how used we have become to the cloudless sunny days! Nevertheless we were told by our driver, Mr. Chedokwa, that even though it may get cloudy it still doesn’t rain in this time of year. Another interesting developement is that we seem to be feeling the chill a little bit more than we used to. Could it be that we are becoming acclimatized to the weather here? If so, you won’t hear us complaining about the summer heat when we get back home
Today Doug and Scott went to the plots. As each team member has taken a turn going to the poorest areas around the Village of Hope we’ve all come back changed. There is really no way to describe the emotions we go through when we see the conditions the people are living in there and the children. The parents leave in the morning at 6am to work the fields and they usually don’t return until around 5pm that night. If it weren’t for the Village of Hope feeding and education program in the plots those children would go without food *all* day! Another sobering reality is the fact that at the moment the Village is only able to go to 4 plots - there are many others with nothing. We’ve already been talking about as a team ways in which we can encourage people to join us in helping fund further plots under the feeding program. We will be leaving some of the extra money behind from what we brought with us to help establish the necessary funding for one more plot.
When Doug went to the plot today he met a 19 month old girl named Veely. She lives with her Aunt because her mother died of AIDS. When she was first discovered at 1 year old she had the body of a 5 month old. She’s just started to walk in the last week or so. Veely was breastfed as a baby so there is a very real possibility that she has AIDS as well. Just one example of the realities we’ve been coming face to face with.
While Doug and Scott were visiting the plots, Alex went to join in with the pre-school class and participated by leading the devotional for the class. Barry and myself went to the Grade 1 and 2 classes. I entertained the children by doing some juggling and then Barry declared Canada day in the classroom and proceeded to give the kids some teaching about Canada. Barry was a great ambassador for Canada and the children learned alot about the different animals in Canada, our Canadian Flag, the seasons in Canada, and some distinctive Canadian sports and activities. We also passed out some keychains that the children of our church made to give out. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of that but I can assure you the Zimbawean children absolutley loved them! They wanted to know what the words in the middle of each key chain said and it was fun watching them go “wow”.
Chris, James, and Kevin went right to work at the construction site while waiting for the rest of us to get back from our other activities. It really is amazing seeing how far we’ve come. Doug figures we’ve laid down about 7,000 bricks and figures by our last working day, “Saturday” we will have laid close to, if not succeeding, 10,000 bricks!
Today, I finished fixing two desktop computers in the administration office and cleaned out a virus that was found on them. Then in the afternoon I concentrated on finishing preparing my message for Sunday.
Today we had pizza for supper. Remember the pizza picture I sent along in the update for Sunday? Well pizza then was a maximum of $410,000 for a Hawaiin pizza. Today that same pizza cost over $600,000. In case you aren’t getting how bad inflation is here hopefully that will give you some insight.
Here are some other facts:
- To Dry clean a suit 1 month ago it cost $75,000. Two weeks ago it cost 150,000. Now, it costs 300,000!
- Bread today cost $20,000 per loaf. Mr. Cooledge stocked up today because tomorrow bread may be as much as $60,000
- Bus fare from where we are living right now to where the Village of Hope is would cost $80,000.
- To illustrate how far the Zimbabwe Dollar has fallen - in 1980 the Zimbabwe Dollar = British Pound 1:1. Wow.
- In a lot of cases the wife and children live in rural areas while the husband lives and works in the city. The husand is usuallly away from his family 3 months at a time.
- In Zimbabwe we’ve come across a lot of construction sites where it looks like the partially finished home has been abandoned. In fact as we found out, what’s happened is that people have set out to construct their homes and then the inflation has risen to the point where they can no longer afford to finish the home.
- Finally, I want to include a few stats I took from an article in the local Zimbabwe newspaper, “The Herald” titled, “Family Basket Shoots up to 5.5million” $5.5 million is the cost of living for a family of six for the month of May. The figure was 3.3 million in April. That equals an increase of 65.6%
- Water and Electricity increased by 251%
- Clothing and Footwear rose by 214%
- Transport rose by 150%
- Tea leaves rose by 121%
- Milk rose by 92.2%
- Beef rose by 85.5%
- Bread rose by 76.5%
*TOMORROW*: Alex, Barry, and Gord Cooledge will be interviewed live by CFOS 560AM at 12:45am. Make sure you turn to that on you dial.
Oh, and in case your wondering, “Kutenda kuseni mabassa kwakafa” means. It means Faih without works is dead. How true!
Picture Time: 1. Mr. Canada himself!
2. James on brick detail
3. A look at the progress - we started putting in windows okay.
4. A picture of an overcast day in Zimbabwe.
Blessings everyone!
- Darren Ethier and the Zimbabwe 2007 Team