Trip to Africa, October 2004

In October of 2004. Dale and Linda Bolton, Alan Friesner and Esther Cheng went to Africa together; it was the first trip for all of us. We went to see Hope Village in Malawi. Thornhill Vineyard Christian Fellowship had raised enough funds to put roofs on two orphan houses that were under construction. Each one would house 10 children and a parent couple. We were going to see that this had taken place. We were housed in a guest house, which belonged to an American family who had gone back home. The English missionary family Les, Jackie, Joshua, Jonathan and Bethany were taking care of it. In return they got to use the house on the adjoining property. The house is a beautiful house with a lovely view overlooking its surroundings. We were at a higher altitude to where Hope Village was located and the weather there was quite pleasant. The house came with a cook and house-girl; they took care of all our needs.
The missionary family, the Dennis’s were staying at the house next door to the guest house. The three children, Josh, Jonathan and Bethany are very good natured and well behaved. We had a very pleasant visit with the Les’ family. Their aspiration was that one day they could have a house built in Hope Village itself, so they would not have to travel back and forth. The trip to Hope Village was a half hour drive away.
On the trip back to Toronto, Alan and I were already making a plan to do fund-raising to help the family raise their funds to build their house. We named it, Let’s Build a House. The first thing we did was to organize a lunch at an African Restaurant (Jikonee: kitchen) we believe that God’s hand was in the project because He truly blessed our efforts. Before the second project of organizing a fund-raising dinner started rolling, the amount needed to build the house was met by one generous donation. To God be all the glory.

esther