GongYi Home of Hope

In May of 2001 we had a group of visitors come to the Home of Hope from Palm Beach Atlantic College in West Palm Beach, Florida. This year another team from Palm Beach Atlantic College honored us with another visit. Two of the team members from last year came again this year and the children and staff here at the Home of Hope were very happy to see them.

The whole team is shown in this picture along with Mr. and Mrs. Wang and their seven adopted orphans from Zheng Zhou who came to sing and play their ancient Chinese instruments for the Home of Hope children and the visitors from America. It was truly a fun and interesting performance and not only did the Wang family sing and play but some of the Home of Hope children and the visitors from Palm Beach Atlantic College did a few performances of their own.

There were several activities prepared for the team of young people from Florida. The Home of Hope staff coordinated visits with local schools, government orphanages and other points of interest. Their first day here we took them out to the new Home of Hope facility and let them do some work. We had a large wall to tear down and we got the team from the States to help. Everyone there that morning worked at something and before lunch time we had a lot of the wall down and broken up almost to the degree that the brick was ready to be cleaned and reused in our renovation work.

Brandon loosening the bricks for the “push”

The team prepares to push the wall over!

Going……………………………..

Going……………………………..

And Gone….. and the photographer had to have help getting down from the next section of wall. (below left) Next the team started breaking the walls apart (below right) so we could salvage the good brick to use on other new walls, planters and things we need to build during the renovation of the facility.

Even “Moses” got involved in the work at the new facility and held a shovel for the first time. Of course if you look close you can see he is right up to date with the times of this modern age. He has Lao Wang’s cell phone in his other hand.Many groups and schools were glad for the opportunity to meet the young people from America and we had a great time while they were visiting. One of the highlights of the visit was the Home of Hope children challenged the foreign visitors to a game of baseball.

The visiting team from America quickly jumped in front with powerful hitting and a true size advantage over the children of the Home of Hope. The three hundred or more spectators and the local TV cameraman all enjoyed the antics of the foreigners as they laughed and clowned their way to a stunning ten run lead in the top of the seventh inning part of which was the result of this “bases loaded” home run. However the children of the Home of Hope never gave up. Aaron Bell who was the captain of the Home of Hope team moved the players in and out of the line up and when the final score came in at the bottom of the ninth it was The Home of Hope team 26 and the USA team 25.

The children were very happy, especially “Dean” shown batting (left) as he had been grounded for a slight altercation with one of his brothers at the Home of Hope and wasn’t sure he was going to get to play. He was relieved and thrilled to have his punishment lifted just in time for the day of the game. All in all the children thoroughly enjoyed the visit of the students from Palm Beach Atlantic College.

Other Things of Interest

As summer gets closer the days get longer and warmer in Gongyi. The other day some of the children got to stay home from school and wanted to know if they could eat lunch outside, which we did. They really enjoy that and seemed to have a greater appetite than when they eat in the dining hall. Later all the children came to me and asked if we could schedule at least one day a week for eating outside.