Wow, we have now reached the £7,000 goal for blessing the work at the Village of Hope for children with AIDS in South Africa! Thank you to ALL who initiated fundraising events, and thank you to all who gave so generously – it has been fantastic to see such generosity at the end of a very touch year financially for many here in the UK.  Together we have raised over £9,000!!!!!   All funds raised above our original £7,000 goal will go towards much-needed medium and long-term solutions for the volunteers accommodation on the Village, which is critical to the work there. So keep it up if you can!

A reminder of why we raised the £7,000 (see project description here), and how it will make a significant difference:

£1,000 will be used by the Village of Hope Team to buy much needed playground equipment for the children – this will bless the kids directly with what many of us take for granted as the joys of childhood.

£3,000 will be spread over the next 6 months towards the London monthly support of Daz & Lisa Muir (see their blog here), who went from London to serve as part of the full-time staff of the Village, and play a key role in the development, sports, clinic etc. They will multiply your giving many times over through their work. They are true heroes, for the past year living in just one  room of the volunteers accommodation unit with their baby son Seth, sharing all other facilities with the volunteers who come and go… which leads us to the next £3,000:

£3,000 will be the deposit for laying the foundations of some additional volunteers accommodation on the Village to make more room for the full-time, medium-term and short-term Volunteers who are such a key part of making the work possible. The planning and permissions are currently being sought for extending this vital part of the infrastructure, and as soon as this is in place and we know the cost of the complete project, we will be joining up with many other supporters to raise the funds for the complete accommodation block. This £3,000 investment will make a difference for many years to come – who knows, maybe you’ll sleep there as a volunteer one day!

Watch this space for pictures and updates on all these projects, and follow the Village of Hope Blog for news from leaders Tim & Maz Walker and the team here.

Once again – THANK YOU FOR GIVING!!

PS – Please remember that this “Hope Challenge” was an initiative facilitated by the Every Nation London church, and is one of many fundraising initiatives for the Village by different groups.