GongYi Home of Hope

Youth Camp 2012 – A great four days!

The Home of Hope Youth Camp, 2012 is over.

At 5:30 this morning we said farewell to Bob and Cindy Sayer and the XuZhou children and at 7:00 AM we watched as the huge bus with the PingYu children (along with Ben And Michelle Godard and their family) made the tight turn to get on the road outside the Home of Hope facility.

We thought we would show you some of the highlights of the four days which culminated with an evening of Bar-B-Que and a Talent Show.

The children arrived on the 27th and spent the day getting settled in, signing up for teams and various activities, getting their “2012” camp “T” shirts and choosing team names and making their team flag.

They did end the day with a cooling off “Swim” in the Home of Hope pond which even though it is a pond, is chlorinated and filtered.
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Children Swimming in our pond – Water Race with leaking containers[/dropshadowbox]
The children from PingYu and XuZhou were a little timid at first but quickly there were squeals and screams of delight as they jumped, splashed and played in the cool water… such a relief from the heat we experienced throughout the day!

We had a lot of fun on “Water Day” which is totally self explanatory. Everything during this day revolved around water. Water Balloon Chairs, Water Balloon Toss, Water Balloon on the Administrator’s heads, Dunking for Apples in buckets of water.. and the kids AND adults enjoyed it because it was so hot!
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The kids really enjoyed the “Dunking for Apples” in buckets of water.[/dropshadowbox]
The next clip is a short section of “Balloon Toss” and then on the “Break the Water Balloon over the Administrator’s head”. Of course the administrator’s being Bob Sayer from XuZhou Home of Hope, Ben Godard from PingYu Home of Hope and Nathan Bell from GongYi – Founder and President of the Home of Hope organization in China.

That was great fun.. nice and cool but then we had the “Water Balloon Musical Chairs” where all the children have a stool. The stools are staged in a circle and Bob Sayer who sings with such a lovely voice stand in the center singing… while he is singing the children have to march around the perimeter of the ring of stools. While they are marching, the staff will remove four or five stools and when Bob quits singing everyone has to sit down. The children left standing with no place to sit then go over to the large tanks filled with water balloons and their play mates break water balloons over their heads.

At times it appeared as if many of the children were missing their stools on purpose… like we have said several times, it was hot and the cool water really felt good!

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This was a contest to see which team could break the most water balloons over the foreigner’s head! Boy did they like this one! …and the water was cold![/dropshadowbox]

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Pass the ball with your legs.. and Tug of Rope.. They really pulled too![/dropshadowbox]

It was a full four days of fun and learning for the children. They were taught many things about Kindness, Helpful and Sharing (the three team names).

The last day of our Youth Camps culminate with a Bar-B-Que and after everyone is stuffed we have a talent show.

Of course there are so many things and we just can’t cover all of them. At the end of this post, we will add a grouping of snapshots to give you more insight into how busy, fun, spiritually uplifting and character building these four days really were.

The hot dogs were cooked by the older children.. well… actually most of the preparation was done by the older children under Ben’s supervision. Our Youth Camps each year are headed up by Ben and Michelle Godard and they do an excellent job of organizing things… which is quite a chore!

The following clip is a series of acts/songs/dances done by the GongYi children, XuZhou children and the PingYu children. We were all amazed at how talented these children and young people really are!

Then what amazed me the most was a little Tibetan dance Mary did for us… being joined by Caleb at the end..

If you have been following the GongYi Home of Hope you know that Mary was abandoned outside our gate as a new born with her right foot turned outward at a 90 degree angle. The doctors said there was no hope for her… we didn’t accept that diagnosis so started therapy on her foot in house, on our own, with the House Mother’s turning her foot to the correct position and massaging it every hour… Wow… look at her now!

Caleb who joins Mary toward the end of this dance was also abandoned at our gate and is growing into quite the young gentleman!

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Water Balloon Toss, Outdoor Movies… Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich eating contest.. all and all it was a busy, busy time![/dropshadowbox]