Pastors Mike and Ann Hill live in Adelaide, South Australia.

In 1999 they were confronted with the great needs of children as they travelled through Asia. They witnessed first-hand the terrible effects of children being discarded and abused. They saw children that had no existence other than what they could salvage from the streets were they lived.

The found themselves filled with compassion and with the support of their church congregation, they took on the challenge of providing care for children in desperate need, to give them not just hope but a secure future.

The heart of Hope Village can best be summed up by this promise, found in God’s Word - The Bible - which is being fulfilled before our eyes:

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29.11)"

When Ps Ann was herself just a young mother, she envisioned wooden houses with funny roofs, stunning mountains and rice fields being the location where children, rescued from hopelessness, would flourish.

Decades later, Ps Mike had returned from a trip through Indonesia and looking at his photographs she recognised the landmarks she'd envisioned years earlier - it was of land near a rural village in Sumatra! 

What had been a dream started to take shape, when on Boxing Day 2004 a tsunami hit the coastline of Indonesia. Ps Mike Hill and Dr Mark Heard travelled to Nias Island in March 2005 to see the impact of the tsunami and earthquakes on local communities.

They returned to Australia with reports of villages that were devastated with crumbled buildings and infrastructure, and thousands of children that were orphaned. After consultation with their church in Adelaide, it was agreed upon that financial aid would be sent to support children in need and that work would commence on the construction of the first two buildings on land in Silamosik, North Sumatra. Sam and Abby Penaluna travelled from Adelaide and lived locally to supervise the construction work for six months.

Finally with two houses ready, and after exhausting attempts to work through contacts on the ground, it was decided that it would be best to personally go in search of children that needed help. In 2007 Ps Mike and Ann Hill visited the island and 15 orphaned children travelled from Nias Island to Sumatra.

Our first home was filled and Hope Village became a family.