Joseph was born in Malawi with a father and mother who embraced a life to serve others. When the AIDS epidemic impacted Malawi, leaving many young children as orphans, Stephen Zulu and his wife, Joseph’s parents willingly took orphans into their very humble home. We remember meeting them, arriving at their small home of only a few square metres and seeing many children around the property. They faithfully fed, housed, schooled, and loved 100 children for years. Sadly, Joseph’s mom died suddenly and a few months later, Stephan died leaving Joseph as a young man in his thirties to take over running the children’s home. Hope House has had the huge privilege and pleasure of participating in the journey of The Good News Children’s Home, watching it develop into a healthy, life-filled environment for children from extremely painful pasts to grow and mature.

Joseph carries a very progressive ambition to see as many of the children as possible go onto study degrees and throw off the cycle of poverty in their lives. He has made many sacrifices in his own life to build and maintain what his parents started building and take it onto a new phase of development and culture of opportunity. While the children are given every opportunity to an education, they are also included in the farming of the home’s fields. There is a happy, contented atmosphere at the home crediting Joseph for a job well done. His simple plea to us at Hope House and funders is, “Please don’t stop loving us.”

In Malawi, girls from the rural areas have very little chance of pursuing a career. They leave school early, marry, have children, and do subsistence farming. Rebecca found herself on this path for her life. As a young girl, she arrived at Good News Children’s Home in Malawi. For the first time, she was exposed to the potential of achieving more than what she had seen. In the secure environment of Good News Children’s Home, Rebecca achieved well at school and matured into a young lady who carried the dream of becoming a teacher. We met her when she had just finished her final school year. A team visit from Hope House to the children’s home offered her the opportunity to meet two members of our team, ultimately becoming her benefactors to support her through her degree. She is at present teaching at a school this year and then hopes to do her Master’s degree.

Her culture spoke a strong message to her as a young girl that there wasn’t much for her to reach for. Despite this, she carries a gracious ambition to create a new culture of opportunity for girls around her. She calls herself “just a simple girl who wants to change the lives of girls of Malawi.” Her brave determination is an inspiration to all of us not to settle for the status quo, but rather to leave a deep footprint where we find ourselves, opening doors that otherwise would remain closed. As much as Rebecca appreciates the support she has been given, we are equally blessed by her example.

Coming from Baie du Tombeau, Matthieu has shown enormous tenacity to overcome the struggle of growing up in a very dysfunctional family environment. The area of Baie du Tombeau has many deep struggles with drugs, addiction, and destructive life examples for the young growing up there. Matthieu connected with us through a Salt Surfers project we held at a beach near his home.

Despite the very tough aspects of his upbringing, Matthieu has completed his schooling, is one of our swimming and surfing coaches, and is part of our carpentry team. He shows a strong aptitude for management and regularly supervises the Hope House team when we are traveling to Malawi and Madagascar. Matthieu is a young man coming from tough circumstances who is set on making a success from the struggle.