God works in amazing ways. As if you didn't know. ;-)

When we were in Liberia spending time with our friends at Christ Our Hope orphanage, one of the things that we discussed was a way to improve the so-called kitchen. I say "so-called" because I'm not sure that most people who read this blog would see a photo of the room pictured above and be able to assert with any confidence that it is, indeed, a kitchen. Well, it is. It's a small room with a dirt floor and two stone "ovens." When the weather is nice, the cooks move the pots outside and do their cooking on the porch of the girls' dormitory, but when it's the rainy season, cooking must be done in this room. Whoever is cooking the food must keep the fire going, and bend over or crouch on the ground to stir the pot and stop the soup and rice from sticking to the bottom. Yikes. And I complain about my "old" stove.

Anyway, when we arrived back in the states, one of our good friends (an amazing man who loves people, loves God, and loves his creation) started conversing with the man who runs SJEDI, a green energy, for-profit company that seeks to be "the premier West African pro-poor, low-carbon development company, decreasing solid fuel use, improving health, the economy, and the environment." Long story short, Christ Our Hope orphanage is the proud owners of two new institutional rocket stoves. Emmanuel is thrilled! The stoves are fast and efficient, cutting cooking times in half and using far less fuel. COH is going to be a experimental site for these cookstoves, testing how they work and possibly even partnering in a community cookstove project that would provide these energy efficient cookstoves to families living around Christ Our Hope.

Exciting stuff! A huge THANK YOU to Evan who set this all up, Peter who championed it, and Royston who is working on the ground in Liberia. As for the rest of you, stay tuned... As we get this community cookstove project off the ground we'll be looking for partners to help us provide microloans so that community members can buy a stove for their household.

Thanks for reading!
-Nicole