Our Story

Ten Thousand Homes started as a group of friends who had life-changing experiences throughout Africa.  Our lives were transformed and our hearts broken as we saw with our eyes and touched with our hands children who have no family…kids desperately crying out for love and affection.  We caught a glimpse of God’s heart for His children and His dreams for their future and we will never be the same.

After leading short-term mission trips to Africa for several years, we began to sense the need to do more.  Because a few of us had backgrounds in construction, we thought building some homes for orphans in vulnerable situations would be a good place to start.  We soon realized that the dreams God had for us were so much bigger than what we envisioned on our own.  God clearly put it on our hearts that we would reach 10,000 children, thus the name Ten Thousand Homes was born.  We quickly grasped that this dream would encompass more than our small team.  Reaching 10,000 orphans would require the entire Body of Christ coming together.  We see Ten Thousand Homes as a movement of people from all walks of life coming together to bring transformation to a generation of Africa’s orphans.

In February of 2007 we moved to White River, South Africa with willing and eager hearts, ready to jump in with both feet.  We started with what we knew how to do.  We built small homes for the most vulnerable and needy orphans. Quickly recognizing that home is so much more than four walls and a roof, we began to create home by building and supporting community care centers.  A care center is a safe place where orphans and vulnerable children can come to receive food, homework help, adult supervision, and LOVE.  Every day we feel God leading us to work through relationship and to come alongside local people who are already making a difference in their communities.  This is the way to build something that will last long after we are gone. Currently we are sponsoring 500 children who come to the care centers in Dwaleni and Mbonisweni.

We soon learned that once these orphans turn 18, they no longer have access to government help or the resources they need to survive.  Unemployment is rampant and the majority of youth lack the training and education necessary to get a good job.  We do not want these children to be orphaned a second time.  Thus, in June of 2008, we stepped out in faith to purchase the campus we are now calling University Village where these orphans can be trained with the vocational and economic skills needed to succeed in life.

In the past few years people from all walks of life have come to visit us, experiencing firsthand God’s heart for the orphaned and vulnerable.  When people allow their hearts to be broken by the things that break God’s heart, they leave here with their lives transformed in a powerful way.  We are beginning to see our dream of a movement take shape as people from all over the world visit us and walk away ready to engage and help bring transformation to a generation of Africa’s orphaned and vulnerable children.  The more we live here the more we realize we cannot do this alone.  We need YOU!