If You Build It They Will Come

Many of us have heard this before; "If You Build it they will come." We can say this of the Door of Hope Family too. When we started this in February of this year, with just six children, we were ready to start the Lord's work and we really had no idea where He was leading us. Yes, we built it and they came!

We have reached the capacity with the boys and getting close to it with the girls at least at this compound. We will know more about our direction in the future when the Lord directs us. What the Lord is giving these children is amazing; they have a good solid chance for a great future because of this opportunity that He has allowed so many of you to participate in. As we get more organized as time goes on, we will have profiles on each child for you to learn more about them as individuals.
Let me catch you up to date with our latest tally:

We now have 15 children, with Momma Eunice and Daddy Brian and their two small children Duke & Deon, Jajas Jim & Robyn (grandparents), Aunt Rita, & Uncle Sam. Although the main function of the momma, daddy, and Uncle Sam is for the Door of Hope Ministry, the rest of the crew divides their time with all of our other ministries as well. But the largest and most time consuming is the Door of Hope Family. Jaja Robyn is in charge of all the procurements for the children; bedding, washing and personal hygiene items, as well as their clothing and shoes.

Our life on the compound is busy for sure. With seven girls and eight boys going to and from school and meeting for supper with 23 people every night, you can imagine that we have to be a well oiled machine.

Supper is at 7:00 PM and consist of an African diet and a muzungu diet, with sometimes a variation of the two. We follow supper with prayers, The Word, and worship music, and on Saturday night we watch a film too!

On Sunday morning we all walk together to church for about a 45 minute journey. Service is about 2 1/2 hours and then the 45 minute journey home. Then the youth group has an afternoon service from 4:00 to 6:00 PM. It is a pretty busy day for being a day of rest!

Here is a typical school day.

For Primary Students

• Leave the compound at 6:30 AM for a 30 minute walk to school (rain or shine)
• Return to the compound at 4:30 PM
• Do some chores, Bathe and prepare for supper
• Supper at 7:00 PM

For Secondary Students

• Leave the compound at 6:30 AM for a 30 minute walk to school
• Return to the compound 6:30PM, do some chores, bathe and prepare for supper.
• Supper 7:00PM

Evening prayers ends at 8:30 and then the washing of dinner plates and cooking utensils is a scheduled task split between the boys and girls with a team of two each working simultaneously. Then it is time to prepare for the next day, and have lights out by 10:00. Good Night!

A Typical African Dinner Menu

• Matooke (steamed & mashed large green bananas), rice, beans, avocado or other fruit.
• Posho (corn starch cooked & mixed to a firm consistency like mashed potatoes), beans, fruit, peanut sauce, green beans.
• Any variation of the above with silver fish. (They are tiny little fish eaten whole that smells like an old shoe, but they love it!)

Fruits can be bananas, watermelon, pineapple.

Vegetables include red potatoes, sweet potatoes, egg plant, tomatoes, green beans, squash, cabbage.

A Typical Muzungu Menu

• Rice with stirred fried vegetables
• Fried potatoes and onions, sliced avocado and tomatoes.
• Spaghetti with meat sauce made with fresh tomatoes
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Fried chicken with rice
• Steamed rice with a vegetable and a fruit
• Tacos, well African style- made with chapatis similar to a flour tortilla with ground meat and seasoning mix from America, sliced tomatoes, (no lettuce or cheese), But we make a pretty good guacamole!

As time goes on and with our past experience here and imagination we have become more creative with new dishes.

Jim's pick of the most sensational of fresh vegetables or fruits available here:

• Avocados These are as large as a very large grapefruit, and are very flavorful and cost equivalent to about 10 cents usd.


• Pineapples These are so sweet and juicy, they are an extra treat to me because I can not eat them in the states because I have a reaction to the acid and it literally burns my mouth. Here I can eat so much of it before I finally know that I have hit the limit. A pineapple costs between 25 to 75 cents usd.


• Passion fruit There is nothing like a glass of fresh squeezed passion fruit juice.


• Bananas are very good and plentiful here and come in a variety of styles, there are very small ones that are sweet, a medium size close to the variety eaten in the US which is my favorite, and the very large type that is used for cooking their matooke.

I enjoyed sharing this little glimpse of our daily life here, I hope you enjoyed it as well. Not a day goes by that we don't think of and pray for our supporters that make this all possible. The base is our regular monthly sponsors, and God knows we need more house sponsors to completely support this, but we offer that up to God for Him to Provide!