In 2012, just after I arrived in Conakry and started to reconcile street children either back into their own families or to live with relatives or friends, the government gave us official permission to take in any child whose family or carers gave us permission to look after them.
There were many vulnerable and abandoned children that we could find no suitable home for and so we started to take them in and the Village of Hope was born.
On the 19th of April, 2012, I took in Kumba, Theresa and Nadia.
Nadia was the youngest among them and in the same year Marquette, Konon, Gaston and Vivian joined us. Three years later Jacque, James, Fomba, Abie, Dauda and Lucinda came to join the Village of Hope family.
The children are a very much loved part of our family. They go to school, do their homework,have times of praise and worship and play. It is my pleasure to always make sure I give them enough one on one attention each day and a cuddle when they need one.
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I am proud of how each one has prospered and grown in the Lord, and as I see their giftings develop, I know each one is going to be mightily used by the Lord for His Glory.
Unfortunately, after the Ebola crises we had in this country, there are many more orphans and abandoned children roaming the streets now than there were before the crisis, and we have no more room to take care of the most needy among them..
We have a small rented house that we all live in now, but we are trusting God for a large tract of land on the outskirts of Conakry where we can build family style houses of three or four bedrooms each where some of the children living on the streets now can find shelter, safety and the joy of being part of a family.
We would also be able to grow much of our own food on the land and
I train leaders on an ongoing basis to lead the churches we plant. A number of these pastors and their families will be trained to live in one of the houses and parent the children we take in as if they were there own.
Stop for the One, which is part of Iris Global, has recently started a page where people can go to help sponsor our children and you can find the page here https://sponsorship.stopfortheone.org/frontend/view_all/1/3-10-13-16-17-18-29-30-36-37-39/#
We are very excited about this vision the Lord has given us and very grateful to Stop for the One and our sponsors who are working with us to achieve it. We will keep you updated on how He works all things together for the good of both these precious little lost ones and Iris Conakry.