GongYi Home of Hope

As is customary in China, about three months ago the government leadership in Gongyi changed. This generally happens about once every two to three years.

We had slowly been developing a relationship with the Mayor of Gongyi but suddenly he was gone along with many of the other bureau leaders of high ranking. Knowing that favor with the government is a primary pre-requisite for the type work we do here, we began to attempt to contact the new Mayor. We had no success. As the weeks went by we realized we were hearing nothing about the new Mayor but everyone was talking about the new head of the Gongyi County Communist Party, Mr. Wang Xiao Ping.
Actually, he is the highest ranking officer in the government and he was making many changes quite rapidly in Gongyi. He started a major drive to beautify the city! Started building new and repairing existing roads. Traffic law enforcement was seen to be improving rapidly and at night one would see more and more police on the street where before one could not be found after dark. Everyone was talking about Wang Xiao Ping! Most favorably and some a little disgruntled (which is always the case) if one happened to own a business and had received an order to make his place of business more presentable. People were finding that ignoring a request to repair their business sign would result in a team showing up in a couple of days to tear it down! Things were happening like we hadn’t seen them happen here before.

We decided that if anyone could help us it would be him so we contacted him. A few days ago he came to visit. He even brought his wife and daughter which is quite unusual. We had a great visit which culminated in our children getting their Hukous.

Left to right above: #1 – Mr Zhang, Nathan, Mosie and Ruthie in front, Wang Xiao Ping’s daughter, Wang Xiao Ping and his wife. #2 – Nathan giving them a tour of the facility. #3 – Wang Xiao Ping and Nathan discussing various situations in the HOH office. #4 – Nathan sharing some humorous things with Wang Xiao Ping and #5 – Telling them good bye as Wang Xiao Ping and his family leave.