GongYi Home of Hope

We are sure our friends and Home of Hope family who have been following the Home of Hope since we opened in February of 2000 remember Jenny Yang Jing Feng. She is not easy to forget!

Jenny is the vivacious little three year old we found in our very first child search back in January 2000. (See our archive pages about the child searches at “How it all Began” and “In Search of Orphans” )

When we found her she was living in a cave and when she saw us she ran out of the cave and jumped right into Nathan’s arms. There was not a dry eye in the place and she was the very first child to come into the Home of Hope.

When she had her first physical we were told she had a slightly erratic heart beat but it was no problem.

She has grown into quite a neat young lady and is still that same old vivacious and tiny thing she was back when we found her. Always with a ready smile, laugh and pure happiness all the time.

About three months back we found her crying in her room right after lunch. It was almost time for the children to go back to school. We asked her what was wrong and she said I can’t walk and I can’t move my right arm. (The picture at right was taken this past summer)

We rushed her to the hospital where she remained for about a month until we moved her to Zhengzhou for more advanced treatment. After visiting three hospitals and many series of specialists including CT scans and many other scans and tests it was determined she had a blood clot in her brain and also the stopped blood vessel was leaking.

She was initially placed on round the clock IVs with blood thinners and other medications, both Western and Chinese. The thinners were a concern in that they were worried about the blood seepage from the vessel they felt was leaking. Surgery was out of the question according to all the doctors.

We had staff with her 24 hours a day and we insisted that she exercise her arm and leg as much as possible but at first there was just no movement at all.

During all of this she stayed happy and even joked and laughed about her condition. Such a doll!

The doctors told us she had taken her medication as long as she could and they needed to change her to a different type. This was to be administered by single injection, not an IV so we insisted they allow us bring her home.

Every day we would give her the injection in the morning and then she would walk on the tread mill for one hour. The she would go to our hot whirl pool bath and sit there for another hour and then she had to exercise her arm and leg with small weights. We also insisted that in the afternoon she did her studies.

Now Jenny is back in school. She has missed so much the teachers think she should be held back for one year and that is fine as we don’t wish her to be behind in her studies.

We believe that Jenny will find full recovery and even now as spring sets in it is a real joy to see her outside playing with the other children and walking around… though with a limp… she is still walking! And she is able to write now with her right hand!

Thanks to all of you who believed with us and prayed for Jenny’s full recovery! She seems to improve a little more every day.