Jacob (on the left) was left at our gate, January 4, 2007 which makes him about three and a half years old (best guess – he was a new born when found) and Beau (on the right) was left at our gate February 28 2006 (also a new-born) which makes him about four years and four months old (again, best guess!)

These two little guys are generally into everything together! If one is into ’something’, then so is the other one. They due have their little disputes from time to time, but they are very rare.

The other evening we were sitting outside in the ‘approaching night’s’ cool after spending a hot day working on our new ’shop’ teaching building. We were visiting with all the children, laughing and talking about just anything that came up when all of a sudden we spied little Beau pushing Jacob around in our Chinese style ‘wheel barrow’. They are both so short and tiny it just struck us funny so we started snapping pictures.

Beau pushed Jacob for awhile and then they would change places and Jacob would push Beau for awhile. Just unbelievably cute!

If you go back into our archives to the pages that talk about when these two came, you will remember that Jacob came with absolutely nothing wrong with his little body. He is still as healthy as a horse! Beau, on the other hand, was born without ears or any openings to his ear canal.

Over time we have discovered that he can hear and we are trying to find a Chinese doctor who will give him the surgery(s) necessary to correct his hearing and then plastic surgery to repair his ears.

These two are just absolutely fun to watch! Anytime!

Water Fun

Several years ago, the children and Ye Ye made a fish pond to add a nice touch to our landscape at the Home of Hope. It wasn’t long though, that we figured out the children could use that pond as a wading/swimming area in the summer.

We added a filter and chlorinator and now each summer they fend off the heat by spending time in the pond.

Today was no exception. It was hot and some of the children spent several hours in the water simply having summer fun.

Jumping off the bridge!

Let’s do it all together!

Water Fight!

Friends Bearing Gifts

A few months back (see previous post “Visitors from ShangHai”) two groups of High School students from Shanghai came to visit. What was unique about these young people is most of them are children of ‘Non-Chinese’ foreigners living or working in China.

We had a great visit and then they returned to ShangHai. As is the general rule, we didn’t expect to hear from them again, at least not for a long while.

Surprisingly, one of the students, a fifteen year old named Sophie was really touched by the children of the Home of Hope and set out to raise funds for the Home of Hope children and to collect clothes and toys from everyone she knew.

One day she called and said she and her family would like to visit on Saturday and on the Friday before we should be expecting a truck with several boxes. Goodness… in our wildest dreams we never thought it would be a truck with so many boxes!

True to her word, the next day Sophie arrived with her Mom and Dad, two cousins and here brother. This awesome family helped open the boxes and distribute the clothes and toys to all the children (we had a lot left to put in our storage room for future distribution), then they stayed for many hours playing with the children and spreading a lot of love all around! We were so impressed and the children were ecstatic and talked about their visit for days! Still talking about it, matter of fact.

Above is Sophie with her two cousins passing out individual bags of goodies she had put together for each one of the Home of Hope children! You can see all the boxes “yet to be opened” in the background.

There wasn’t a child left out! You see the tiny ones walking around with their new goodies in their little arms and the older children as well, holding tight onto their new treasures!

Above some of the children pose for a picture with Sophie and her family standing in the back and below we have Sophie with her family. Bruce and Autumn got into the picture. It seemed like Sophie’s dad and Bruce really hit it off and of course Autumn always makes friends with everyone!

From left to right are: Sophie’s cousin Janni, her brother Christopher, her Mom Dorthe and Dad Anders, Sophie and her other cousin Jan with Autumn and Bruce in front.

We were truly impressed with this family and totally moved by Sophie’s caring heart!

We hope you enjoyed this update. If you would like to help the Home of Hope children in any way, you can visit our Current Needs page.

You can also visit our Donation Page.

Thank You from all of us at the Home of Hope – With a grateful heart!

NEW BEDS FOR THE CHILDREN

Some time ago we realized the children’s beds were in dire need of replacement. Some more than others, as you can probably imagine. After ten years of use, all the beds at the Gongyi Home of Hope have started to deteriorate in various degrees of wear. Fortunately, a church in California along with a kind lady in Mississippi provided the funds for new beds.

Interestingly enough, providing beds for over fifty children is not something that is easily accomplished. There are no wholesale houses where one can go order fifty or sixty beds and to achieve any kind of quality (greatly needed due to being used by a lot of energetic children) one has to make sure the materials being used are good enough to provide long term use.

This was not the first time we have had to replace beds. The end of 2008 we had to replace quite a few of our beds which had already deteriorated beyond use. The funding for that project came from a church in Texas and was greatly appreciated. This time however, all the remaining beds needed to be replaced.

To insure the quality of materials, we first had to go to the lumber mill and order the milling of the wood to our specifications. One thing neat about this is, we see the actual log the material is going to come out of before the milling process starts.




Once the timber is milled, we go through it, one piece at a time, selecting the wood we can use and rejecting that which has large knots or splits or pockets of sap. We then pay for what we take based on a pricing schedule similar to that calculated on “board feet”. Of course here they use the metric system.

Once the wood is selected, it is loaded on carts pulled by donkeys and hauled several killometers to the wood working factory where it will be processed into the final beds.

This takes quite a few trips by donkey carts. No matter how long we are here, we never get used to seeing the contrast of heavy laden donkey carts going down the State highway along side modern busses, trucks and cars.

We always have quite a bit of sympathy for the donkeys because we know their fate! Once they are old and can’t work any longer they are then butchered and used for meat dishes. Quite tasty actually! (Grin)

HOME OF HOPE PING PONG TOURNAMENT

In China, the main time of celebration is the Chinese New Years, often referred to as “Spring Festival”. This celebration/holiday is scheduled based on the Lunar calendar, so as far as the Western calendar is concerned, it never comes on the same date. This year it actually starts on the 14th of February (Valentines Day).

During this time, everything shuts down (we mean everything except emergency services) for a minimum of five days starting with the first day of the holiday. The schools also shut down for at least a month so right now, all the Home of Hope children are home including all the college kids.

This allows us to have many activities with all the children which is somewhat difficult to do during the school year. A typical day during the normal school year, the high school and middle school students get home after 6:30 PM (leaving for school between 5:30 and 6:00 AM) and of course the college kids only come home on special occasions.

Shortly after Christmas, we decided to have a Ping Pong tournament, open to all the children and based on a handicap system to make it as fair as possible for each child. Almost all the boys and several of the girls signed up for the tournament. Nathan was the judge and Ben Godard (the director of the Home of Hope #3 in PingYu) helped with the score keeper chores, as we had two tables going at the same time. We want to do this again during this New Years break!

Those children not actually playing in the tournament came to watch, so we had a large gallery of ‘observers’ cheering on the participants.

Above right, are the three finalists, (left to right) Wayne Li Meng Di, John Yao Shu Xing and Adam Zhang Lang. We were all quite impressed with their skills at the game. John has grown so tall over the last year and it seemed as if he had no equal with his ability to reach all areas of the playing surface.

Wayne is a different type of player. Nothing fancy but with a serious and steady defense. Adam is a very aggressive player using a lot of English and slams. This made for a very interesting series of play-off games.

In the end it came down to a final play-off game between John and Wayne.
Initially, we were a little worried that no matter how hard we tried, the hanidicap system we were using wouldn’t give each child an equal shot a victory, but it really worked out well.

The final series of games between John and Wayne were very close with the point spread of the scores being just a few points seperating the two.

John came out on top as the winner of the tournament and all the children said they wanted us to do it again very soon with many of the girls saying they would join in the fun the next time..

We hope you enjoyed this update. We will be bringing you more stories and information during and after the Chinese New Years Holidays. (Spring Festival) Blessings!

With there being just eight days before Christmas everyone is getting excited and ready for the great day. The small children as well as the larger children are preparing little programs to present at our Christmas Eve ‘Get-together’.

The kitchen staff is preparing for the special Christmas dinner (Chinese Style.. No turkey intended! ) and the Rec-Room is being decorated.

The Rec-Room which is normally used as a study hall in the evenings and a play room during the day and off-study periods, is now locked and off limits except to those children and staff doing the decorating. We have transferred our study hall location to the dining hall during this time and it works quite well once the evening supper is eaten and the dishes are cleared away.

As more wrapped gifts show up under the tree the children do everything they can to sneak a peek in the door when someone goes in and out…. typical to children everywhere! We can’t say what the gifts are that are being wrapped because many of our children browse our website on a frequent basis. We will post the outcome after Christmas.

The children in the Home of Hope Kindergarten and Primary School are making Christmas related decorations to hang EVERYWHERE! In the above picture are Rose Xiong Ai, Mosie Xiong En, Autumn Xiong Duo and Ruthie Xiong Shan, showing off the Christmas Stocking decorations they made themselves. In reading the story below, which does not have such a happy outcome, remember that each one of the four children you see above were abandoned children who, thanks to you and all who support the Home of Hope organization, have a great future before them!

Of course, having Christmas for fifty-two children, staff and Home of Hope alumni (those children who have grown up and are now on their own, but who “come home” for Christmas each year, does have it’s extra expenses. If you would like to contribute toward this you can do so by going to our “Donate Now” page.

During all this excitement and hustle and bustle of preparations we were brought back to the reality of why we are here (as is usually what happens).

Yesterday afternoon we were visited by this lady and her husband along with their baby. They wanted us to take their baby and raise it since they simply can’t’ take care of it nor, after almost a year, do they any longer have the will to try. Their basic statement was either we take the baby or they were going to abandon it.

The little girl is almost one year old and has a medical condition that makes it impossible for us to take her in here at the Home of Hope.

This whole situation made us very sad and at the same time made us realize how fortunate all of us are at the Home of Hope and how no matter how much we do to help, it is never enough. There are always people out there who have reached the end of their rope…. have no hope for the future… not even for tomorrow. These realities cause us deep reflection on how fortunate we are to be able to celebrate the meaning of Christmas and how we must continue to reach out to help those we can, no matter how difficult it is or how tired we become.

The day after the episode above, the kindergarten children came over to see us during their recess. Little Rose Xiong Ai (she is on the left in the group picture above) handed us a note with writing on both sides. (See the pictures of the note below – top is the front side and the bottom is the back side.) As she shyly handed it to us, we asked her if she had done this all by herself. She nodded in affirmation. After reading the note the question had to be asked again due to the content. After all, Rose is just barely six years old.

She again confirmed that she had done it all by herself and then her kindergarten mates chimed in and confirmed it as well.

The translation is under each page.

Ye Ye, (Grandpa Nathan) I want to say something to you.
You work so hard. Everyday you are so busy you can’t rest. You are so busy yet you find time to take Xiong Duo (Autumn) and Xiong En (Mosie) to ZhengZhou to see the dentist. Also, every day you make us happy.

I hope you to be joyful. I hope you to be happy. I am making ready a gift for you. I love you very much.

You take care of so many Home of Hope children by working so hard.

It is things like this that simply make our hearts sing and bring focus to what we are doing here. (The picture at the left is of Rose Xiong Ai shortly after she was abandoned at our gate, June 12, 2003 – almost 7 years ago)

Of course we get tired and there are times when we get discouraged and even wonder if what we are doing is having an impact on the children at all. Then something like this takes place and we realize that in fact… it is!

We had to go to Hong Kong to do some work with the Chinese Consulate regarding our long term visas and when we got back, our car which we left at the airport, had over fourteen inches of snow built up on it. Amazing for our area.

In the picture above and left to right are Ruthie, Gracie, Mary in the front… Rose in the back, Autumn, Abby Joy and Isaac with Mosie behind Autumn and Rose.

The following Slideshow was made from pictures taken over a 48 hour period while the snow was falling and getting deeper and deeper.

If it hasn’t already done so, this Slideshow may take a couple of minutes to download, depending on your server speed, but it is well worth the wait.

Sweet Potato Harvest

The children love to cook their own sweet potatoes over an open fire. I suppose one would call that “roasted” or some thing like that. Anyway, to make them even better, they grow their own. We haven’t actually taken a count but it seems like they harvest them about two or three times a year.

However, we have noticed that one of the motivations for their getting out and harvesting what is ready is more than the desire to have roasted sweet potatoes.

Our small truck farm area is not fenced and since this is a social country, everything belongs to everyone. About the time we notice increased activity with the local villagers coming to our sweet potato patch and gathering potatoes for themselves, the Home of Hope children get out and have a major harvest. Makes sense to us.

“Rachel, Rachel” – “Come here Ye Ye”

It wasn’t long ago that little Rachel (abandoned at our gate at birth) would burst into tears whenever Ye Ye would come around. We often thought it was because she associated spending time with Ye Ye to her trips to Beijing for surgery. Now it is totally opposite. Every time she sees Ye Ye (Nathan) anywhere, she calls to him to come and play or hold her or whatever.

This time Nathan was walking down the hall outside the Nursery and she saw him and (even though it was nap time) she jumped up and started calling out to Ye Ye to come and play. Nathan was on the way to take some pictures so had his camera and grabbed a couple of shots in passing! What a doll!

Of course Aaron (also abandoned at our gate at birth) was also awake and started laughing and begging to have his picture taken as well so he was accommodated! It is such a joy to watch these little “Real People” grow and develop their own individual personalities, habits and traits. Fun and heart warming beyond imagination!

“We need your help!”

Hard times have come on the Home of Hope orphanages primarily due to the economic slowdowns in the countries where our support comes from. At the same time, strong inflation is hitting China and the dollar to RMB exchange rate is depreciating. We are in the process of determining where we can cut back on less critical operational expenses while at the same time the start up of the PingYu facility is taking off this month. We could use your help. You can go to our “Donate Now” page to make a contribution. Anything you can do to help the work here, either large or small, will be greatly appreciated.

Thank You and blessings!

Yesterday, our first and second grade tutors asked if they could take the children to the park for their PE and Study Hall classes and we agreed as long as they would take the camera and get a few pictures of the children during the outing. They did and we thought we would post some of them.

In the picture above we are focusing on, left to right – Autumn, Rose, Ruthie, Isaac and Moses. These children were all newborns, abandoned and either found on the street by the police and brought to us, or abandoned at our gate, usually during the night hours.

We want to “thank” those who have helped with ‘contributions of love’ for the Home of Hope this month and over the years. Lately, we have felt the pressure of the combination of continuing our current growth at the existing facilities while at the same time gearing up for the ‘Start Up’ of PingYu. However, we feel strongly that this is the time and place for the third Home of Hope and as we continue to believe for guidance in this project we know that provisions will come in.

Your participation in the Vision for the lost and needy from the mountains and rural area of Gongyi is so greatly appreciated and though we say this a lot, we know that without your involvement in the work here, we could not continue, so again, Thank You!

We thought we would show you one more picture from the field trip with insets of each child when they first came to the Home of Hope so you can see just how much your contributions toward their life has truly accomplished. These little guys are smart, loving and just exciting to be around. You have not only made their life possible but have also made it possible for each one of them to have the surgeries necessary to take care of the various reasons they were abandoned in the first place.

Watching them grow and sharing God’s love with them is another reason why we are so very appreciative for your helping to make all of this possible.

Thank You and Blessings!

P.S. – As a footnote, the weather bureau says that day after tomorrow the temperatures are suppose to drop over forty degrees. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Not only did our college kids head back to school, but in conjunction with our “in house” kindergarten, first and second grades, we have also started a pre kindergarten aged toddlers learning center. We don’t load the little ones up with too heavy a criteria but we are encouraging them to write and draw and sing and dance. This will prepare them for starting Kindergarten next year. So far they all really enjoy this new addition to their little lives and were all excited when “Ye Ye” (Nathan) walked in to take their picture.

Ye Ye’s next stop was the Kindergarten and the children were doing exercises with the teacher where she would ask them questions and the children would raise their hands if they had the answer. Of course Ye Ye’s appearance in their class disrupted everything.

Ye Ye’s next stop on this picture taking expedition was to the first grade class. Above left to right are Rose, Autumn and Isaac.

The class room is set up for using the ACE curriculum including each child having his/her own “office” (the individual “desk” cubicles you see). In following the ACE program, each child studies at his own pace so most of the time total silence is required so one child doesn’t interfere with the other children. When a child needs help from the teacher, he/she raises his/her flag and the teacher will then give them one on one help.

We have been really happy with the results of our Kindergarten and First and Second grade classes. The children study in Chinese half the day keeping in line with the same subjects the normal Chinese schools teach at these grade levels. They study, Chinese writing, Chinese speaking, Social Studies, Math, Art and Music.

The other half of the day they study in English and their English studies are again, reading, writing, grammar and math.

NEW BABY

While Nathan was in the States to escort Shannon back to China, a new baby was dropped off outside our gate during the night. This little guy only has one problem and that is a “not so severe” cleft lip and cleft palate. All of his other vitals are very good. Strong heart, good lungs and very responsive to sounds and touch. We named him Enoch (Meaning: Dedicated and Enlightened) and he will have his first surgery in January or February.

If you would like to contribute to either Enoch’s monthly sponsorship or to his upcoming surgeries (three will be required) you can do so by going to our donations page.

ORTHODONTICS

As many of you, who have been following the Home of Hope for awhile are aware, our cleft lip and cleft palate children will eventually have to undergo orthodontic treatment to straighten their bite, jaw and teeth.

This last month this treatment started for both Autumn Xiong Duo and Moses Xiong en.

Above Autumn is showing off the mechanical brace that is slowly pulling her jaw and mouth into alignment. There is also a retainer inside her mouth to assist in proper teeth alignment.

Autumn does really well with her treatment including removing the device herself each time to eat and brush her teeth and also putting it back on each time.

Moses‘ situation is more severe than Autumn’s so for now, he needs assistance in removing the mouth piece at each mealtime and for cleaning and brushing his teeth. Other than that, he does really well with the device although he hates to go out in public with it on. That is reversal from what we thought it would be with Autumn not caring if people see her in hers. Mosie really hates to be seen in public with it on.

Orthodontic work is relatively expensive and we have quite a few more children who will need the same treatment. If you would like to help financially with these projects you can do so at our “How I Can Help” section of this web site.

We will keep this site updated as much as possible.

Thank you so much for visiting us!

Can I do this? – I can try! – Now what? – Don’t Roll, Don’t Roll! – I did it! Yeah!

Just assuming what might have been going through Rachel’s little mind as we took snapshots of her struggling to stand up astride the ball. She has come so far since that day she was abandoned and left to die with such a terrible cleft lip / palate condition.

Thank you so much for those of you who shared offerings of love to help with Rachel’s expenses. We so appreciate your willingness to sacrifice and to partner with us as we work to bring light, hope and hapiness to these children (and staff) who would otherwise never have had the opportunity to even know about such things.

We had a couple of birthdays since our last update and thought to share them with you. On the left above is Abby Joy – Miao Yin who was abandoned at a Buddhist convent up in the Gongyi mountains and the nuns there were too old to care for her so they called us. What a delightful child.

On the right above is Rose Xiong Ai. When we look at Rose we always feel there is a special connection between her and Bob Sayre (the administrator of our XuZhou Home of Hope) in that Rose was “distressed” at our gate at just several hours old the same day that Bob Sayre showed up to visit us.

We knew that he already had a desire to serve in China but seeing a tiny baby traumatized like that, first hand, simply affects a person beyond belief. Just to look at that tiny body laying there and realizing she is a real person… a real life and she (or he) has just been thrown away to real uncertainty simply because of a minor physical problem (in both these cases it was a cleft lip/palate condition) and realize, now you are part of the ‘saving’ of this helpless baby… knowing that you are part of not only giving this newborn ‘life’ but also taking him/her out of the clutches of death and giving them a great chance at a future with Hope, Truth and Love included! It goes without saying that Bob was greatly impacted by this experience and he is still serving in China today!

In keeping with the same topic about the babies in stress, the picture above was also taken at Rose’s birthday.
You can see Ben Godard (Ben and Michelle with their three small boys are here training to be the administrators for Home of Hope Number 3 when it opens later this year.) leaning over and helping Rose. You can also see his son Tyler’s face just below Ben’s nose.

Other than Ben and Tyler, all the other faces you see in this picture are those newborns who came to us without hope of a future or even remaining alive. Through the efforts of the Home of Hope and your sacrificial generosity in helping us remain a source of life to these children, they are thriving, growing strong in body, character and spirit. Actually the children you see here are representative of only a fourth of our baby population.

GRADUATION

Lest people forget, we also have children who have been with us since February 2000. These children do grow up and as they do we are deeply involved in helping them make life long decisions about their future.

At the left is Hank Cao Hai Kui who was in our first group of twelve children to come to the Home of Hope in 2000. We will be having other children graduate during the next twelve months but Hank is our first!

Hank’s graduation on June 10th became a milestone at the Home of Hope! After 9 ½ years of caring and teaching – crying and laughing – Home of Hope saw it’s first child graduate from college.

Hank joined the Home of Hope in February of 2000. As is the case with most children in his situation, he had many issues, fears and pre-set notions about his future. All negative!

We so clearly remember the look of disbelief and doubt when we told him we wanted him to graduate from college so he needed to pay attention to his studies and focus on getting good grades. Even at his young age, he knew this kind of thing just did not happen to someone from his status in society. But it did happen and now he is starting to study for the English TOFEL test which he must pass in order to continue with his goal of graduating from a seminary in Portland, Oregon. Successful completion of the TOFEL is a requirement for foreign students by both the US Department of Immigration and the college in Portland.

It was a proud day for us and a very happy day for Hank.

During the next six months as he is studying for his TOFEL exam he will also be working at the Home of Hope helping with English translations and teaching the younger children. Please remember Hank as he sets out on his life’s adventures and seeks for the best in his life!

Thank You for visiting our web site. We hope you enjoyed your visit and we will be updating again soon!

Two more days until Valentines day! Due to it being that time of year we wanted to share with you this small tidbit that just added to the many things that show what tremendous impact the HOH is having on the lives of the children. At times it is hard to describe.

As many of you know, we now have the Home of Hope grade school (we use the ACE curriculum) as well as our own kindergarten. Our grade school children study in English all morning and the afternoon classes are in Chinese. Consequently, they are bilingual. The kindergarten children have afternoon English classes.

This last week the grade school children learned about Valentines Day and wanted to make Valentines Day cards. We told them to go ahead and design and make their own cards.

The picture above is the outside of the card that Ruthie Xiong Shan (now in the 1st grade) made for Nai Nai and Ye Ye (Shannon and Nathan). Ruthie is pictured on the right a day after she was abandoned on the street in Gongyi and brought to us by a policeman. That was November of 2000. So thin and just barely alive! What a beautiful child she has become!

The picture below shows the inside of the card she made (on the left) and it is these kinds of things that make us understand why our destiny has us here in China. These children, all destined to die, now have life and hope and they all know the meaning of love and sharing! (Ruthie now eight, shown on the right below.)

Thank you so much for your faithful support and your prayers which are as much a part of keeping the Home of Hope going as is our being here! It is your love and sacrifice, along with others, that brings hope and life to many children just like Ruthie!

Please “think” about us next week as we having more meetings about the opening of Home of Hope #3. We need favor from the government and financing for this new venture. The opening of a new facility is always very expensive but is so needed.

Thank You and blessings!

At about 8:30 AM our gate guard called and said he had found a bundle outside the gate. We hurried over and there it was! All wrapped up in six layers of blankets to shield it from the cold (it was about zero outside). As is our custom we asked the guard many questions about where the bundle was laying and if he saw anyone drop it off and so on.

We slowly started to unwrap the bundle and our normal concerns and apprehensions set in as they always do. “What would we find?” “Would the baby be healthy?” “Would the baby be cleft lip?” Would the baby fall under the parameters that we have to follow regarding the health of the babies we can keep and the ones we are not able to help?”

All of these questions as we unwrapped layer after layer until finally a little head appeared. Right away we could see this little one was cleft lipped but we still didn’t know about the condition of it’s palate so we kept removing blankets and then it’s baby clothes until we could check everything on “his” (turned out to be a little, baby boy) little body.
Ten toes, eight fingers and two thumbs… Good! Legs seem sound… Hands and arms seem normal… no “birth trauma” visible to his little head. Just the cleft lip problem… Now let’s make him cry so we can see inside his mouth.

He wouldn’t cooperate at first but finally he did and there it was… the cleft palate. This is something we have grown accustomed to seeing after these many years in China, and it is something that is very treatable with surgery and help with learning to speak clearly.

We were actually quite happy to see this because it is rare for 100% healthy babies to be abandoned at our gate. We have had several but most of the time the abandoned little ones have some type physical problem.

This last six months has been extremely hard on us as we have had eight babies abandoned at our gate who have either passed away shortly after being discovered or had a major physical problem that we are not equipped to deal with or which are not allowed to keep based on our agreements with the government.

That is why when we discovered this little guy had a cleft lip – cleft palate problem we felt some sense of relief since this is an operable situation and in our experience the cleft lip – cleft palate babies are usually pretty healthy other than that single, small problem. The most difficult part of the cleft palate baby is in the feeding while they are still in the “new born” stage. They have to drink their formula very slowly so they often fall asleep before they have taken in as much as they should.

In the picture above you can see the small note and the 100 Yuan bank note that was found inside the baby’s blankets. The note asks us to take care of the baby with love and kindness and states that he was born five days before which puts his birthday at January 15th, the same birthday as Nathan’s father. Since we already have a child named John, we decided to call him Morris after Nathan’s father’s middle name. His Chinese name is Xiong Hui (Full of light) not to be confused with “Charity”. Charity’s name is also Xiong Hui (Virtuous) but the Chinese character’s are different giving the two names two entirely different meanings.

If you would like to contribute to the life of Morris Xiong Hui and be involved with him from the very beginning you can do so by going to our donations site.

New Years Fun

Those of you who have been part of the Home of Hope family for several years are aware that Chinese New Years is the biggest time of celebration in China. During the New Years “week” those Home of Hope children who have friends or distant family in the villages where they came from, go back to visit for a day or two.

Those Home of Hope children who have no known family or village roots don’t go anywhere during this time so we always try to do something special for them. This year a new “arcade” facility opened in Gongyi and we decided to take the children there for an afternoon of fun and games.

As you can see in the picture above as well as the following pictures, they really had a good time. There were bumper cars, air hockey, several different types of rides and other games to play.

When it came time to leave, the owner said he wanted to donate the fee as a New Years gift to the Home of Hope. So nice!

Temporary Workers!

In keeping with the New Year’s Holiday, we try to allow our staff as much time off as possible so during the days when some of the children go back to their villages to visit… a time when our work load demand is not as great, we allow some of the staff to have off as well. However, it leaves a condition of not being so fair as they all want time off, but we can’t accommodate everyone because this is an orphanage and demands 24 hours a day service from the work force.

To alleviate the problem and keep all the staff happy, this year we called on our eleven college students to work during the New Year’s… which several of them with no place to go, gladly agreed to do.

Hank, Brian and David took care of the kitchen duties while Julie, Logan, Holly, Esther and Linda helped out in the nursery and also in taking care of the younger children who have moved out of the Nursery. We were so proud of these young people as they did an amazing job! Actually, better than the staff in some areas!

Logan on the left, Esther on the right

Holly Hou San Juan on the left, Julie Zhang Yan Yan on the right

Hank on the left, Nathan and David on the right

We want to again express our deepest appreciation for your prayers and support. These last few months have been quite a challenging time for us with both social and financial adversities brought on by the current economic situations in China, the States and other parts of the world. It is such a comfort to know you are standing with us and are a true part of the work here. The efforts we put forth together are already starting to show great results in the lives of our children.

Thank you so much! From all of us here in China, to you and yours!

We send you best wishes for this New Year and pray that God will bless you abundantly….. As the Chinese New Year’s greeting says… “Good Health, Good Success, Great Happiness and Good Luck!”… in other words.. “Be Blessed!”

We left on Monday morning, April 14th to take Dawn and one House Mother to Beijing for Dawn’s surgery. We arrived at the hospital a little after four in the afternoon and got them all settled in. The doctor told us the surgery would be the next day at 5:00 PM and it took place as scheduled.

Above left then right – Dawn just out of surgery. The nurse is getting her connected to the monitoring machine. Then she put arm restraints and leg restraints on her so she couldn’t grab at the surgery area and also her IVs were in her little feet so her legs got restraints also. (She was sure upset about that when she woke up!)

After about ten minutes Dawn started coming in and out of the anesthesia but mostly she slept for the next hour.

Next day, April 16, 2008

She would cry then want to play… it became obvious after a little while that she was not in much pain but more aggravated about the arm restraints… not being able to do what all babies her age like to do… stuff things in their mouth… She would laugh (couldn’t get a shot of that since the flash was bothering her and she quickly figured out how to duck her head when the camera was pointed at her) and bounce and kept reaching for our cell phone and the camera.

Ye Ye let her play with his cell phone. She liked that! And she really liked being pushed around in her little stroller. By the way, that wire looking thing over her mouth is common practice with cleft lip surgeries. It will stay there for some time (even after the stitches are removed) to protect the surgery area.

So, Ye Ye started pushing her around in her stroller.. up and down the halls in the hospital we went. She couldn’t get enough of that, but after awhile, Ye Ye had enough!

Finally, visiting hours were over and we had to tell her goodbye. We are going back to Gongyi in the morning and will return to take Dawn and the House Mother back to Gongyi in about eight days.

Next day, April 17, 2008 – Picture taken by the House Mother

Each day Dawn seems to be doing better. The single picture above was taken on the 17th and sent to us by the House Mother staying with Dawn in Beijing.

The two pictures below were taken the following day on the 18th and she seems in better spirits yet and the House Mother confirms that she is playing with some of the other children now and doing fine.

Dawn arrives back in Gongyi – She’s Home! April 22, 2008

We don’t need to say much about the two above pictures…. they are pretty much self explanatory… especially the smile on Dawn’s face. She is obviously glad to be home. We show you these pictures so you can see how the surgery turned out. There is still much swelling and redness but all in all it looks as good as any we have experienced to date. We are very happy with the result!

Of course Dawn is happy to be back in her familiar territory, especially with her brothers and sisters. And of course Beau (above left) and Jacob (in the crib) are glad to have her back too though they are not sure what all the excitement is about.

The surgery was very successful.

A big Thank You to everyone who contributed to this milestone in Dawn’s life. Without your help, surgeries like this would not be possible.

If you would like to contribute to the medical expense for Dawn, Charity, Beau or Mathew you can do so at our donations page.