GongYi Home of Hope

Early this year Ben and Michelle Godard and their three awesome little boys (left) came to intern with the Home of Hope in Gongyi. Ben and Michelle feel a real ‘call’ to help the less fortunate children of China and they are really doing great.

This Spring they indicated they wanted to hold a youth camp at the Gongyi HOH facility for BOTH the Gongyi children and the XuZhou children. We thought this was an awesome idea and so plans were made and eventually implemented.

There were five days of awesome teaching, playing, developing new friends, (all of the HOH children – XuZhou and Gongyi – had never been together in one place before) and just an “all around” great time!

Bob Sayre loaded up the XuZhou Home of Hope children on a large bus and headed to Gongyi. They arrived in the late morning and it wasn’t long (even before the Youth Camp was formally kicked off) before the XuZhou children discovered the Gongyi Home of Hope pond.

Up until this year the pond was actually a fish pond but we removed the fish and added a chlorination system to the pond so now the water is nice and clean and the children love to get in the pond to cool off during the hot summer days. The pond is only two feet deep. Even so we have very strict rules and of course the children’s safety is our very first concern!

As the XuZhou children started playing in the water it wasn’t long before several of the HOH children joined them. It was really cool to watch these “distant” brothers and sisters begin to develop bonds with each other and as the days passed by, there was a real sense of long lasting relationships being made.

Even though Ben and Michelle split the children into three teams, “Dogs” (Depend on God), “Frogs” (Forever relay on God) and “Joy” (Jesus, Others, Yourself) which created a great sense of competition, the children remained kind and considerate toward each other throughout.

Each team made their own flag and one of the older children was assigned “Captain” for the team!

Hank Cao Hai Kui headed up the team “DOG”

Brian Ren Bin Ke headed up the team “FROG”

David Zhang Hai Tao headed up the team “JOY”

From human wheel barrow races to a tour of some historic spots in Gongyi…..

…to a tug of war contest gone astray to a food eating contest….

…. to designing our own “T” shirts….. and then showing them off! Isn’t this one pretty?

…. midnight volley ball to cheering on the “Joy” team! We all had a great time!

And as happens to all good things, the time came to say good bye! The XuZhou children headed back to XuZhou with Bob Sayre and the GongYi children got back to work doing their summer chores!

A great, big, Texas “Atta Boy” to Ben and Michelle for a job well done… lot’s and lot’s of work on their part in preparation and in managing the day to day activities! Great Job!

Everyone decided we really want to do this again next year! Won’t you come join us?

Some more snapshots of the Gongyi – XuZhou Home of Hope Youth Camp. Too many activities to list or show but one can be sure it was a wonderful time during the hotest part of the year! Everyone can’t wait until next year so we can do it all over again, only bigger and better!

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