GongYi Home of Hope

The last of our seven university aged children have now gone off to school.

Our pictures of their leaving are somewhat limited because when most of them actually left for college we were in Beijing getting Aaron Xiong Wei set up for his club foot treatment. But we still wanted to share our feelings with you at this time.

The feelings are one of loneliness with a little sadness combined with a sense of great pride at how things have turned out over the years.

The first one to leave was Esther Kang Wen Jun. As you can see from the small inset in the picture on the left there has been major changes in this young lady’s life since she first came to the Home of Hope in 2000 as a little girl!

As she was loading her things in the van and getting ready for the final farewell until at least Christmas or New Years, we could not help but allow our minds wonder back over the last eight years and the fast forward to the present with so many memories of things that have happened and watching her grow during this time.

Esther is attending Mei Yu YuYan Xue Yuan in Beijing. Her major interest is in art but she won’t be getting into that for at least until the second semester.

Esther spent this summer working in the Home of Hope office where she was responsible for doing the data input into our accounting systems. (We use the plural because we have to have two accounting reports.. one for the Chinese government and one for the US Government. She did an excellent job and we are really proud of her!

The next ones to leave were Julie, Holly, Hank and Sam.

Julie is in her second year at Shi Fan Zhuan Ye Xue Yuan in the Northern part of ZhengZhou. She is doing excellent and has turned into a fine young lady. Very dependable and considerate of all around her, beautiful and smart as well!

Julie was in the second group that came into the Home of Hope in July of 2000. She has always seemed very mature for her age and is always helping with the younger children!

She is majoring in commercial art and is truly talented! She picked the right major!

Hank is in his second year at the Cheng Gong Xue Yuan University right here in Gongyi.

This means he gets to come home on the weekends and we are very happy about that. Hank is a great young man and Ye Ye often uses him for translation work.

This summer Hank worked for the Home of Hope on monthly salary and did a great job! He was very excited about his summer job because he got to learn to new techniques, got to work with Ye Ye and earned money at the same time!

Sam also left when Hank and Julie left.

Sam is attending SIAS University in XinZheng. That is the same university that Nathan and Shannon worked at when they first came to China. It was while they were at SIAS University (Shannon teaching and Nathan working as Vice President) they were led to go into the orphanage work and started the Gongyi Home of Hope in February 2000.

Sam was in the second group that came to the Home of Hope in July of 2000. Actually, all these young people joined the Home of Hope in 2000. Some in February and some in July.

The next to leave was David Zhang Hai Tao.

David is attending the Zheng Zhou Jiao Tong Zhi Ye Ji Shu Xue Yuan University in ZhengZhou. David was also in the second group that came to the Home of Hope in July 2000 and we are so very proud of him.

David has shown a real genius for working with computers and he is pursuing that course in his college training!

We know he will do great!

The next to go was Logan.

Logan is attending Shang Qiu Zhi Ye Ji Shu Xue Yuan University in southern Henan, Province. Even Mike, the Home of Hope mascot and guard dog was sad to see her leave!

Logan has been a leader in the chldren’s group since she arrived at the Home of Hope in February 2000 (another one of the first children to join the Home of Hope) and we are very proud of her! She is majoring in art and has a real talent in the field.

As we stated earlier, our pictures of the seven college kids leaving for school is limited because we were in Beijing when most of them left.

You may also have noted that above we show four of the seven standing by the van getting ready to leave, one of them being Holly Hou San Juan, but we have said nothing about her.

Holly was a victim of a very common tragedy in China at this time of year.

She had an invitation to attend a certain university in ZhengZhou but very much like large hotels and motels, they over book. Holly did indeed leave when the others left but when she arrived the school told her there was no room for her and so she had to come back! My what terrible disappointment!

As soon as she got back we went to work finding her another university to go to that wasn’t full already! We were successful and she wasn’t to leave until the day after we returned from Beijing.

Late last night my preset alarm went off at midnight. I rolled out of bed, dressed and went down stairs to take Holly to the train station to catch a train to her new university. She was accepted by Shang Qiu Ke Ji Xue Yuan university, also in Southern Henan.

This was my first real hands on at telling one of these kids goodbye… combined with the late of night and my being tired from the trip to Beijing, it was almost more than we could bare to send this young lady off into the teeming world all by her self.

So many memories came flooding in! The first time we saw her standing outside her little house built back into the mountain side.. The years of cheerfulness she has brought into the Home of Hope. Actually, too many memories to tell, but it was one emotional goodbye.

It is very uncommon in China for people to hug each other good bye in the train station, but as I told her good bye she hugged me and asked me to say a prayer with her before I left!

Like Esther, Holly is some distance from us so won’t be able to visit as often as we would like. We will miss her and can’t wait until Christmas when she comes home for a few days!

As of now each of the children has called to say they are settled in and all is well with them.

We had to obligate ourselves financially this year to get all of these children in college. If you would like to help us settle the outstanding amounts due for these children’s 2007 – 08 school season and contribute to their continued education you can do so by going to our donations page.

Thank you!

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