Springtime in China
Most of the pictures in this update are from our April 2009 collection. We will cover several activities but mostly we hope you celebrate the onset of Spring with us! After a long, cold and hard winter it is really nice to shed the two or three layers of “long jons”, get out the old “coal fired” hot water heater – converted into an outdoor grill and just begin to enjoy the outdoors again.
One of the first things that happens in April is Nathan’s birthday. He knew something special was up when that first weekend in April, all of the college students starting showing up at home with there being no reason for them to leave school.
Now that cake shown above plus the food and everything else shown below pertaining to Nathan’s bithday was bought by all the children pooling their saved allowances. The fruit on that cake is real… strawberries, kiwi, pineapple, peaches.. yum! And the saying on the cake… “You are my Blessing” brought tears to Nathan’s eyes.
Above left: Sam, Joey, Brian and David seem to be standing guard over all the goodies while Hank seems to be trying to figure out how to grab a bite or two. Above Right: Bananas, Apples, Pineapples, Pomegranates and Strawberries made up the fruit portion of the fare.
Above left: Chicken, chicken and more chicken! Above right: Fresh, roasted corn harvested from our neighbor’s fields. (with their permission of course!)
Several years ago we converted over our hot water and heating system from coal to natural gas. Many of you pitched in and helped with those expenses for which we are still so very grateful!
When the conversion was finished we were left with to coal fired boilers and we used one to make an outdoor grill with. It doesn’t look so good but it works just fine! It does take six men and a boy to move however! So it stays pretty stationary.
Above Hank shows off his culinary skills and you can tell by the smile on his face, he is having a great time!
Then it was time to eat.. Everyone had been anticipating this moment! Some had tried to coerce Hank in to letting them sample what was in the grill but he would have none of it!
Above left: The children say grace before starting and on the right: They dig in!
Above left: Autumn and Mary are having a good time and (right) Caleb is helping house mother Liu Jian Ping kill off all the bananas.
Above left: Charity, not long since back from her surgery is really enjoying the bananas while on the right, Jacob is keeping right up with her!
Above left: Joy Zhang Qing Mei is showing us how to enjoy the chicken while (right) Tony is holding his own on the roasted corn!
All in all, everyone really enjoyed the night… from the older children (Rena, Shirley and Gail on the left) to the younger ones (little Ron on the right giving the “OK” sign!)
After supper and as darkness began to creep in, the children got into playing. On the right, several of them did their best to confuse us as to who in the world is in the picture. Starting on the top left corner is a classmate of one of the older girls. Then going clockwise you can see Jule, Abby Joy (not one of the older girls… ) Holly, Gail, Shirley and Rena. On the right it appears Holly is strong enough to carry Rena… Wow!
Above left: Now the it is dark enough, the boys get ready to light the candles on the cake. Left to right: Nathan, Hank, Sam and John. While on the right, we have no idea what in the world was said or happened to get this kind of look on Jim’s face! Wow!
Finally the cake was cut and while each person was being served a piece of the cake the children gave Nathan a birthday card they had made themselves. Again, he had to fight back the tears!
Around China in the Spring
We also wanted to share with you some of the beauty one can find in the mountains surrounding the Home of Hope in Gongyi. The following pictures were all taken on a short drive one afternoon in mid April. All of these were taken less than ten miles from the Home of Hope.
This picture was taken at a place that is a little bit like the National Parks in the States. When we first came to China one could visit here and hardly ever see another person which is quite a treat in China, home to over 1/3 the population of the world.
However and now, due to the middle class becoming somewhat more affluent and being able to buy cars, places like this are frequented more and more.. especially on the weekends. However, during the week one can still find a place to get away from the throngs of people, the noises and the smells and find a little quiet and time of relaxation.
Anytime we walk down almost any street in China, it is most common to hear people saying (almost non stop) “LaoWai, LaoWai” which means ‘foreigner, foreigner’. However, on the rare occasions when we can get away like this we don’t hear that and it is quite a relief.
The flowered trees this time of the year in China are really pretty. These are not wild however, as this area has been populated for thousands of years and one can find fruit trees growing ‘as if in the wild’ just about any place. Though maybe not cultivated now by any set person they were planted at some time or another by people in the past.
Of course temples, pagodas and other towers and design can be found just about anywhere. You drive down a road, go around a curve and there in front of you is something similar to the two pictures above. You can also see these types of things from the trains.
What we always enjoy is the magnificent mountains! Such a creation!
The first year!
Our children have been in our 1st grade elementary class for just about a year now. They study in English the first half of the day and then in Chinese the second half of the day.
Michelle Godard teaches the English and we have a special Chinese teacher on staff for the Chinese classes. The English classes follow the ACE program and the Chinese classes follow the standard Chinese school curriculum.
The other day Michelle had to be away for the morning and Nathan sat in for her. He was so surprised to hear Autumn and Isaac read to him in English. In the pictures below you can see them reading from their “Paces”.
Other Birthdays – Abby Joy Miao Yi
This is Abby Joy’s fifth birthday and she has been at the Home of Hope all of her five years. She was abandoned at a Buddhist convent way up in the Gongyi mountains and all of the Buddhist nuns there were in their late seventies so they asked us to take her and raise her. We willingly agreed to do so.
Abby Joy has had to surgeries, both for cleft lip and cleft palate issues and is a bright little girl full of happiness and also a lot of mischief!
Above left: So excited about her birthday! Above right: Abby Joy cuts her cake. In the top picture are Caleb, Gracie and Rose joining Abby Joy.
Home of Hope Number Three!
We have been given the approval to start our third orphanage in SanMenXia county. They named two places they preferred us to go to. One being YiMa and the other being MianChi.
After looking at both area we decided we liked the area of MianChi much better do the proximity of schools and hospitals so we began to look for land or old schools or factories we could utilize with minimum cost to set up Number Three. So far we have found two places. One is the picture shown above which is an old abandoned school much like the Gongyi facility was when we obtained it.
However, this location has very little land attached to it so it really is not what we really wanted for a permanent location.
Then we found the following:
Nothing firm yet but we really feel good about this place. (You can see a larger picture by clicking on the picture it’s self) We have not received a final price from the village that owns this property nor have we been given agreement by the government to locate at this specific place. But it does fill our needs perfectly.
It was used as a brick factory in the past but has been empty for several years. The existing building are structurally sound. There is electricity and there is a well on the property.
Please pray with us that everything will work out in this situation.
We hope you have enjoyed this update to the Home of Hope and if you would like to contribute to the lives of our children and the future children to find hope by coming into the Home of Hope you can do so on our donations page.
Thank You!
Posted: May 10th, 2009 under Birthdays, Building, Expanding, China Tidbits, Uncategorized.