Greetings friends and family! We have ended day 6 of our journey in Zimbabwe and there are only 7 days left before we fly out to leave for home. Many of us have expressed that in some ways it feels like we’ve been here a month. We have experienced so much and worked so hard that time has become a bit of a nebulous fragment. A common thought among all of us is that we are greatly enjoying this experience, greatly challenged by it, and missing home as well.
Today we woke up to the sun once again. The weather is so consistent here in the winter. Overnight the temperature drops to around 1-4 degrees Celsius and as soon as the sun rises around 6:00am the temperature begins rising until it reaches around 22-24 degrees Celsius. We’ve had a lot of fun telling our new Zimbabwe friends what winters in Canada are like and have even shown pictures of our famous snowbanks to a few people. They always tremble at the thought of how cold it is and wonder how we survive!
When we arrived at the village, Barry and Alex went to the plots and participated in the feeding and education program there with two of the preschool teachers from the Village. Chris went to the preschool class and joined with them for most of the morning. He was responsible for doing the Bible lesson that morning and taught on David and Goliath. Apparently the “Davids” had a blast bringing down big old “Goliath” (Chris) hehe! The rest of us joined in with staff devotions and I participated in that with leading the devotion and opening in prayer and James closed in prayer. Every morning the staff of the Village of Hope meet together and pray for the daily activities before starting their day. Prayer is so vital and we certainly recognize how important faith in Jesus Christ has been in the success of the Village.
Following the staff devotional I stayed in the office and worked on the office computers cleaning them up from a virus infestation they had and repairing other glitches and software problems they had been having. The rest of the men went to continue working on the school block. We’ve been working with some local contractors to build the school block. These workers have been hired for the current construction work on the property and have deadlines they have to meet. If they go over the deadlines there is a reduction in the payment they will receive for the work. It is nice knowing that our coming and helping these contractors isn’t going to cost them anything but is actually a blessing to them as well as to the village as it helps enable them to finish the work faster. We’ve had a chance to build some relationships with the local workers and many of the more experienced construction guys on our team have been able to pass on some skills to them as we’ve worked along side of them. Below you’ll see some pictures of how some of the construction is coming along.
In the morning we took a break to take a picture with the team and workers from the village with a mock-up cheque representing the amount that has been raised over and above our team expenses that will be given to the Village of Hope. The cheque was for $25,000. I really can’t begin to express the emotions that we shared as we got together for that picture. We’ve talked often about the support we’ve received from friends and family and our community that has enabled us to bless the VOH in this way. We’ve also talked about the responsibility we feel to be good stewards of that trust. It is such a wonderful feeling to be able to bless the Village in this way! Thanks again so much for your support folks! We can assure you *firsthand *that the money is begin put to good use. There are two pictures of the cheque below.
This afternoon Barry went to the airport with Gord Cooledge to see about the two bags that didn’t make it to Zimbabwe. When he arrived he discovered that so far only one bag has arrived but Praise God it was the bag with tools, toys and crafts! Apparently the bag was completely ripped and torn up but it’s contents were pretty much undamaged. The hockey bag was mine but I got to tell you, I have no problems with it being torn up It’ll make a nice souvenir of our trip to Zimbabwe!
At the end of the day we returned to the house tired but feeling good about what is being accomplished while we are here. Our team meetings in the evening are usually lasting about an hour and a half by the time each of us share the experiences of the day with each other and we pray together. It has been an incredible bonding time as a team as we go through this exprience together.
Some new facts to share: - There are nearly always lineups for fuel due to the cost and steps the people have to go through in order to get the fuel. - Gas costs $140,000 Zimbabwean per litre here. And we complain because…. - The official currency exchange rate for the Zimbabwe Dollar that you will find out from financial sources online and in the banks is listed at 1 Canadian Dollar = roughly $234 ZWD. In actual fact, as we’ve discovered while here, the exchange rate is closer to 1 CAD = about $114,000 ZWD. - The most a teacher will make in Zimbabwe is one million ZWD’s / month. Barry got three postcards today and two stamps and the cost was $335,000 ZWD. That’s it *for today* - it would cost more tomorrow. Now, you can imagine how difficult it is for people to afford to buy even the basic necessities each month! The saddest thing is that for a lot of employees in Zimbabwe the wages don’t increase inline with inflation. We were pleased to discover that the Village of Hope makes it a practice to increase wages for their staff in line with the inflation rate.
One final fact for this update: Makanaka Mwari means “God You are Good”. This is a line of a song that one of our Zimbabwe friends, Mr. Mufasa, has been teaching us. Mr. Mufasa is the headmaster of the elementary school being developed on the Village of Hope grounds. It truly is a blessing for us to witness that in spite of the devestated economy, in spite of the hardships the people here face, and in spite of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles - they still are able to say, “God You are Good”. For they understand that *real life* and *real joy* is found not in the possessions we have but in the relationships we are blessed with. Especially the relationship we can enjoy with our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ. Further, believers here also readily say that they know God takes care of them. And indeed He is, indeed He does. Makanaka Mwari!
Here’s some pictures: 1. A picture of Barry at the plots with some of the children. 2. A picture of the Zimbabwe 2007 team presenting the cheque to some of the Village of Hope Staff and the pastor of the Hope Community Church located on the Village grounds (middle next to me). 3. A picture of the cheque with the Grade one and two class of CHAPS (Cornelius Hope Academy Primary School). Mr. Mufasa, the headmaster, is in the middle and the two women are the teachers. 4. A picture showing the progress being made on the school block we are working on. 5. A picture showing some of the contracted workers we are working with.
Blessings!
- Darren Ethier and the Zimbabwe 2007 Team

Hi there folks - it’s getting late and I’m tired and there’s a long day tomorrow but I thought I’d send out this quick update being that I missed yesterday’s due to the power being out and not being able to attain an internet connection. June 18th: - Kevin and James were the first two from the team to go visit the “plots” in the morning. The plots are places where farmhands live on the land that belongs to a farmer. A farmhand makes about 200 Zimbabwean dollars a month. Read that again in light of the Zimbabwe inflation and what I told you earlier about the cost of items. Remember a pizza costing $800,000. In light of that pay you can begin to get a bit of a picture what the plots are like. Each week day, two preschool teachers from the village go to the plots and they get the children started on learning how to read and write in English. They also do a Bible Verse, Pray the Lord’s Prayer, play a game with the chidlen, and then the children get fed a porridge. We will have pictures following Friday. We have been asked to limit the picture taking to one person and only on one day. - We had a full day of work at the Village. Doug worked alongside with the foreman of the construction crew working on the school block to keep everyone busy and make sure everyone had a job to do. Scott and Alex set the bricks and Chris mixed the cement. Kevin, James, and I were kept busy doing odd jobs but most of the time we transported bricks by wheelbarrow from where they had been dropped off to a place more accessible for the brick layers. Barry was helping move the bricks as well but spent some of the day with the Cooledges finalizing arrangments for the project. - We found out that the two missing bags will be in Wednesady morning. - We finished the day tired and beat but happy with what we had accomplished. - We invited the groundskeeper of the house we’re staying in and his family (Mr.Techaon) for dinner with us.
June 19th. - Arrived at the village - Chris and I took our turns going to the plots while the rest of the guys resumed working at the school. - I did some computer work for the Cooledges - In the afternoon Pastor Darren went with Pastor Zowa for a tour of the Bible College and Barry and James did a live interview wth Radio 97.9 “the Beach’ back home. - Another great day at work and we accomplished a lot.
Sorry for the lack of detail and pictures tonight. It’s 12:51am here and I’m getting pretty tired. By the time all the guys check their email, we have supper and have our group meeting it’s gotten pretty late and I’m pretty tired from the day. Twice I’ve had to delete a few lines of one letter as I’ve drifted off to sleep while typing this update!
Thanks for all your prayers and suport, - Darren Ethier and the Zimbabwe 2007 Team.

We’re back on Canadian Soil! It’s good to be home and we were greeted with a pleasant surprise when some of our family members showed up to welcome us at the airport!
Now comes the difficult part of getting back into life as a Canadian without losing what we’ve learned from our time in Zimbabwe. Our team has already been talking about what we are doing now that we are home and in the coming months you’ll hear more from us. In the meantime we’re just going to take a month to think through what we’ve learned and enjoy our families. In the near future we’ll be announcing when we’ll have a presentation night of pictures and stories of our experiences - and where the Zimbabwe Project goes from here. There’s so much we have to share over and above these reports we’ve been giving you.
One more thing. Alex Pendergast’s bag didn’t arrive with us in Toronto. He’s been told there wasn’t enough room on the plane and they had to leave the bag in London. Keep this in prayer that the bag will arrive safely.
Tatenda! (Thank you)

Hi folks - just a quick update that we’ve arrived safely in London and have checked into the hotel for overnight. It was a pretty emotional goodbye in Harare this morning. All of us are looking forward to getting home
To our families…if you want to send an email to any of us feel free to do so. We have internet access while we’re at the hotel so we will receive the emails and can reply. Just keep in mind that it is currently 9:00pm here in London (we’re 5 hours ahead of EST).

Well here we are at last, a day that at first seemed like it was a long ways off and now has oh too quickly crept up on us. We’re at the last day of our journey here in Zimbabwe. As we’ve talked about the time here there are moments where it seems like we’ve been here for a month and then there are moments where it seems like we just arrived yesterday. One thing is for certain - we’re torn between leaving and saying our goodbyes to all the wonderful people we’ve met here and getting excited about going home to our families and friends who we are missing soooo much.
Today, we spent the morning shopping at a market in Harare. It’s similar to a flea market at home in Canada only the merchants are much more aggressive here and we were warned that as soon as they see a white person they will jack up the prices considerably so we had better barter. And barter we did! We spent a couple hours browsing and purchasing a few souvenirs and gifts for when we get home.
Following the market we had a lunch on our way to Svimba township where we visited another Orphanage that Gord and Anita Cooledge had been made aware of. The orphanage was called Vimbainesu Children’s Home. First some background to the story of what brought us to visit this particular orphanage.
Our original plans for our stay in Zimbabwe included a trip to a wildlife resort located about 3 hours away from Harare that included many activities including walking with lions. It was a two night stay. However, when we got to Zimbabwe, after our first weekend here we discussed the budget and realized that over half of our budget was going towards our staying at this wildlife resort. We agreed as a group that we really didn’t feel that it was a wise use of the money and so after going over things with Gord and looking at a number of different options we decided to cancel our trip to the resort and go to a closer Game Park that was much cheaper and still had a number of great activities to help us experience some of the animals of Africa.
The benefits of this decision were enormous! We were able to participate in the Family Day after church on Sunday which we wouldn’t have been able to had we gone to the wildlife resort. We were able to still get a great day in at the Game Park. And finally we had an opportunity to visit this orphanage that Gord had mentioned he had hoped to be able to take us too but originally wasn’t going to be able to because of our trip the Wildlife Resort. Are we ever glad we made the decision we did.
Vimbainesu Children’s Home was begun by two women who decided they wanted to do something for orphans and these two ladies have worked tirelessly and faithfully with a very minimal amount of resources to care for orphaned children. Most of this children have been orphaned because their parents died of AIDS. An organization that had regularly funded this orphanage had stopped the support and these ladies have really struggled to kep the care going for the children. We took two hockey bags full of stuff with us to the orphanage and with some of the money we saved from not going to the Wildlife Resort we were able to support the orphanage for a year at $125 USD/mo (which equals roughly ZIM $18,750,000 with current exchange rates).
What a blessing it was for us to be able to go and see this orphanage and the awesome work these ladies are doing with so little. It was also an awesome experience to see the children’s and house mother’s faces light up when we presented them with the gifts.
Currently the orphange houses 31 children which range in ages from infant to 16 or 17. All the children are in school and the orphanage itself runs a preschool for the orphans as well as other children in the community (they have an additional 58 kids that come to the preschool. There are two ladies that stay right on the property and care for the orphanage and they’ve recently had an additional two ladies come during the day to help be house moms.
As usual, a picture tells a lot more than words ever could so I’ve attached a few of the ones we took. This will be the last update from Harare. On our journey home which begins tomorrow I’ll update when we arrive safely at Heathrow and then again when we reach Toronto but that will be it. I’ll post one final update after a few days when we’ve had a chance to unwind a bit. Till then, thanks for following along on our journey and Praise God for everything he has done in us and through us while we’ve been here.
1. Barry holding the infant in the orphanage.
2. The kids showing off some of the gifts we brought.
3.One of the unique things on the orphanage is that the cows and chicken’s are alllowed to walk around freely. You can also see in this picture one of the building on the orphanage property.
4. A picture of the washrooms for the orphanage
5. The electric stove in the kitchen no longer works so they have had to start cooking over an open fire.
6. This is one of the “directors” of the orphanage with Barry.
7. Kevin with some of the kids from the orphanae.
8. The orphanage kids.
9. A picture of the classroom.
10. Doug with the kids.