GongYi Home of Hope

This is our second year to have our Home of Hope Summer Camp which is when we bring all the Home of Hope children (from both XuZhou and GongYi) and many of the employees together for one week of fun activities, corporate teaching on character and social graces.

After last years Summer Camp we realized that our older children had different needs than our younger children so were faced with the dilemma of what to do to satisfy everyone, across the board.

We decided to use the college age children… both those currently attending college and those just graduated from High School and headed to college this fall… as Summer Camp councilors and leaders. Of course this means their part of the Summer Camp will be “all work” and “no play” which according to myth makes “Johnny a dull boy”!

Ben and Michelle Godard came up with a great plan! We decided that the week before the Summer Camp was to begin we would take the college age children to Green Dragon Mountain for a three day retreat… camping, playing, studying, eating and enjoying the out of doors together.

The following are several groupings of snapshots taken during those three days…

Green Dragon Mountain Scenery

Green Dragon Mountain is about twenty five miles from the Gongyi Home of Hope. It is a beautiful place and actually is a reserve for a famous Buddhist Temple. The area is a paradise of huge mountains, deep valleys and many lakes and brooks that wind their way through the valleys. It is always an enjoyable and relaxing trip to go there and escape the teeming population and noise one finds in most places in China.

We thought we would include a few snapshots of the scenery at Green Dragon Mountain… although pictures cannot do it justice!

Water Fun

Green Dragon Mountain has a main “Brook”, “Creek” or “Small River” whichever you elect to use running through it’s entirety. There are a series of small dams that have been installed over the years so this has developed into accessible flowing water along with quite a few nice lakes to swim in.

As is the case most of the time with children and young people… they can’t wait to get into the water on a hot summer day!

Get on your mark! Get set! Go!

Julie on the left….. Sam on the right

David on the left…. Holly, Esther, David and Julie

Esther on the left…. Holly on the right….

Julie on the left…. David on the right….

Above six pictures: David and his Olympic Style Diving!

Jim on the left…. Paul on the right….

Joey on the left…. David on the right….

Logan on the left…. Holly on the right….

Tall Pictures

Every time we have activities, our pictures are taken by different people to get a varied perspective of the activities. Invariably, we get pictures that are good but are taken with the camera turned sideways. This process does offer a different view of things but these type pictures don’t lend themselves to an easy fit on our web site… We thought it would be interesting to show some of these this time around… Here they are!

Esther in front of the entrance to Green Dragon Mountain – Jim “Wall Sitting”

David – A Tarzan “wanna be”?

Holly on the left – David on the right!

Logan on the left – Esther on the right

Logan – Always pretty with her smile and dimples

More of David – One of the last of the Mohicans?

Holly bringing up the rear of the hike? – Logan, Julie, Holly and Esther

Other Activities

All of us with Ben and Michelle and their three boys

We had daily devotionals together…. each day a different child led the discussion (Above)

There were also daily character building classes (Above)

Then we had our general “Goof Off” times (Below)

…. we had our individual times to show off or simply reflect on past, present and future (below)

and we had the good times with just all of us being together (below)

And of course the food! Oh my… The food! THE FOOOOOOD!

The children stayed in a very small, family owned “Inn” way up in the mountains. Actually with the children and Ben and Michelle and their three boys there was no “Room in the Inn” for any other people.

As is typical in China, the family showed their stuff when it came to meal times. There was always a super array of dishes spiced with all the Chinese spices and herbs… just simply Yummy! And very inexpensive as well.

The pictures above show our first meal with the family. Left is the dishes they served (this was lunch) and on the right are one bunch of full young people… ready for the afternoon.

Again… dishes for another meal (above). Needless to say, no one went hungry!

The major treat of the trip was the Marshmallows…. (Next six pictures Below) Ben and Michelle Godard had some friends and family send over several bags of Marshmallows especially for this retreat. Nathan and Shannon have given the children “Hot Dog” cook outs before but never Marshmallows so this was a new and exciting experience for the kids.

We hope you have enjoyed spending three days with us at our retreat to the Green Dragon Mountains. There are a lot of pictures with this page but we wanted everyone to get to see our “senior” children as they won’t be with us too much longer as they go to university and graduate, go into the work place, marry and start families of their own.

This year, all of these children will be in university and we could sure use the help for their education costs. We have seven kids in their second or third year and four more starting their freshman year this Fall.

We must pay their tuition and education through the Home of Hope funding with no help from the government. We really need your help as this year we are looking at a university cost total of 100,000.00 RMB (about $15,000.00 US). These figures do not take into account our other educational expenses for our grade school, middle school and high school students.

If you wish to help you can do so by going to our “Donations” page. Thank You!

Thank you for visiting us. Be sure to watch for our “Summer Camp” posting early next week.

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