Our 2008 Summer Camp went from July 14th to July 18th. This year we again combined all the children from XuZhou Home of Hope and GongYi Home of Hope along with several children from the outside who wanted to join us.

On July 13th, Bob Sayer and the children from the XuZhou Home of Hope arrived at the GongYi Home of Hope (see photo below left.) So much excitement as all the children greeted each other after a year of not seeing each other… and happy, bubbly conversation was in the air. After a short time everyone got settled in their rooms and had their first meal together.

On the evening of July 13th Ben and Michelle Godard (being trained for the administrative duties of the next Home of Hope) who were in charge of the Youth Camp with a fantastic agenda scheduled for the next five days, divided the children into teams. Those teams ended up being team “Wolf”, team “Lion” and team “Tiger” and you can see the teams above including each team’s counselor.

As you will see in the pictures and photo albums on this update, we had classes, character seminars, crafts and competition activities.

On our second night a major storm blew in and the torrential downpour was so strong water blew in under our doors flooding the downstairs bedrooms where the children had elected to sleep on the floor. That was quite an “unplanned” excitement for the children as everyone had to get up, roll their bedding up and fight to keep the water out..

Being aware that we did not have enough chairs and stools for all the extra children and adults we would have during the camp week, one of the first craft activities was for each child to make his/her own “sitting” pillow. We gave each child a foam pillow with a plain cover on it and they were to decorate it with their name and any other type of pretty thing they wished to draw or write.

We also opened our Youth Camp to our employee’s children and to children from the outside. We had several “non Home of Hope children in attendance. On the right is Violet Li Yun Qian the daughter of one of the Gongyi Home of Hope Nursery Nannies as she decorates her pillow. The children came up with some very neat designs and interesting color combinations. All of them were happy with their work and the pillows came in handy as the various activities unfolded.

Another item the children made the night before the camp actually started were their personalized “T” shirts. A Youth Group from the States provided over 100 “T” shirts for our camp and after we had divided the entire camp into three teams (Wolf, Tiger and Lion). First the children “Tie Dyed” their “T” shirts and then painted their own design on them along with their name and the name of their team. The following group picture was taken with all the children wearing their special “HOH Youth Camp – 2008” “T” shirts.

The Activities

There were many activities everyone was involved in. Here are a few of them!

We had skits…..
in this picture David donned a mustache as an army officer in the Japanese army.

We had dance teams….

Throw the football through the hoop!

Sidewalk Bowling

Hula Hoop Contests

Talent Show

Ma Hai Tao (the Gongyi Home of Hope maintenance man) and Joey sing together.

A trip to town on the HOH bus for Ice Cream - Daily Hand Crafts

Summer Snow Ball Fights (wadded up paper) - Individual Team Classes

Hanging Donut Eating Contest (No Hands Allowed!)

Three legged Foot Races

Ring Toss for the little ones - Night Volley Ball

Kick Ball for the little ones - Apple Bobbing for all!

Chin-up Competition

Standing Broadjump competition

The following are a series of photo albums from the Summer Camp presented in Flash format. This year we took so many picture we felt we should give our friends and site visitors a chance to see as many as possible.

There are quite a few snap shots but our regular viewers and supporters of the Home of Hope always tell us “the more pictures the better”. They like looking for the children they have met or that they sponsor or they have as an e-mail pen pal.
……so here they are! Enjoy!

Summer Camp - Monday Photo Album
Summer Camp - Tuesday Photo Album #1
Summer Camp - Tuesday Photo Album #2
Summer Camp - Tuesday Photo Album #3
Summer Camp - Tuesday Photo Album #4
Summer Camp - Wednesday Photo Album #1
Summer Camp - Wednesday Photo Album #2
Summer Camp - Wednesday Photo Album #3
Summer Camp - Thursday Photo Album #1
Summer Camp - Thursday Photo Album #2
Summer Camp - Friday Photo Album #1
Summer Camp - Friday Photo Album #2

We had several visitors from the United States join our Summer Camp. They shared some of their snapshots with us so we made those into an album as well.

Summer Camp - Misc Snaps

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.

As soon as the children start getting out of school for the summer, we not only do chores together but we play together as well. Some of the things we do are preliminary trials of some of the activities at the youth camp.

David (on the left) has the part time job of being pond/pool guard when the children nine and under are enjoying the water. We have various scheduled times when the children ten and over can swim… nine and under can swim and certain times are set aside for the nursery children and their house nannies.

David does not need to be on guard while the ten and above children are swimming since the pool/pond is only two and a half feet deep in the deepest part so during those times he continues to work on other maintenance items at the Home of Hope although part of his pool/pond guard duties include keeping the water “skimmed”, checking the chlorination and PH balance three times a day and keeping the bottom vacuumed.

Of course like children the world over, the Home of Hope children love playing in the water. Above two pictures show Jaxin and Eli Godard, Moses and Isaac in the water while the older boys (not their turn) look on.

Sack Races, Human Wheel Barrow Races,Tug-of-war, Watermelon Eating Contest and Spin around the Stick

Most of the following pictures are self explanatory showing the activities we had one afternoon to celebrate the children being out of school for the summer. (Sack races… no sacks… just one foot of each person tied to the other person’s foot)

Adam and Mathew………………………………….Zak and Bruce

Mosie and Jaxin……………………………………….Ruthie and Joy

Isaac, Autumn, Mosie and Jaxin…………………Mosie and Jaxin

Autumn and Rose, Isaac and Grace…………..Michael and Tony

Mathew and Adam…………………………………..Lily and Rena

Heidi and Shirley………………………………………Shirley and Autumn

Mosie and Jaxin (Tony in back)…………………Vincent and Joseph

Adam with the ball…………………………………..Whole group watching a “swisher”!

The following pictures show a new game we had not played before at the Home of Hope. It was introduced by Christopher Green (shown in the pictures), a short term volunteer. The children really bonded with him.

The game is a lot of fun in that the child has to put his nose on the end of the stick as shown and then walk round and round the stick. It seems the object of the game is to walk until one falls down from dizziness… however, we think there was some type competition involved… we just could not figure out what it was.

Gracie’s turn……………………………………………Isaac’s turn

Ruthie’s turn……………………………………………Joy’s turn

Dizzy Enough Already!

Can you handle it Zak?……………………………..I think I can

No hands Henry……………………………...………Now it’s a race!

Enough! Enough… No more watermelon please! I’m stuffed!

Thank You for visiting our short excursion into the Home of Hope early summer. We hope you enjoyed your visit and we hope you come back again soon!

Thank You!

Most of he boys elect the more manual work, wishing to learn various skills like maintenance, carpentry, lawn care and the various things we do as Summer up-keep and improvement at our facility. The girls generally ask for jobs in the kitchen, nursery and office.

Wind Storm Damage

On May 15th, just three days after the great earthquake which hit Southern China, we experienced several days of storms with very strong winds and heavy rains.

Several large limbs from our many Weeping Willow trees broke off and also 75% of the Cyclone Fencing enclosure around our combination Basketball, Volleyball and Tennis court blew down. Knowing the children would start to be released from school for the summer months we cleaned up and then prepared for the repair work.

On Monday, June 17, we started the work to replace the cyclone fencing. Rather than call a fencing company back out we salvaged as much of the cyclone fencing as we could and bought galvanized pipe locally and started the re-installation. David on the ladder, Joey sitting on the wall, Bryan on the saw horse with his back to us, Paul handing something to Jim who is hiding behind the tree.

First we had to cut back some trees that had grown up outside our walls, then remove all the damaged support pieces from the original installation. The picture on the right is Jim looking up from the ‘jungle’ he created while cutting down the trees.

The boys did a great job of getting everything ready for the re-installation of the enclosure fencing. On the left is Joey, also in his jungle and on the right David is showing his elation of ‘conquering’ the forest!

Site Maintenance

Every year, due to the quality of the paint we can obtain locally, we need to re-paint the lines on our multi purpose court. The children use the multi purpose court as often as they can and throughout the year.

The primary use is basketball but there is also a fair share of volleyball and tennis as well as sometime they play soccer and ride bikes on the court…. consequently the lines only make it one year.

First, the old paint from last year needs to be scrapped and wire brushed so all loose material is removed. Then we paint black lines for tennis, red lines for basketball and yellow lines for volleyball.

The boys working on this project were the same ones doing the netting repair. Paul, Jim, David, Dennis and Joey. Later, a few more will get out of school and they too will work on the many projects we have for this summer. We will add more information and pictures as the work begins and continues. In the above pictures the boys are scraping and putting tape down to paint the lines very straight. The man in the light green shirt is Ma Hai Tao our assistant manager and maintenance supervisor… leading the way and teaching the boys.

Un-Scheduled Work

As things often happen here, just as we were finishing up the painting of the court lines, we were given a new challenge.

If you follow the wall behind where the boys are working to the area beside our yellow bus you will see our small maintenance building. We never knew why, but that little building had it’s own electric meter. About once every six months the electric company would come out and read that meter and give us a bill, complaining that the electric bill for that small building was too high… (yes… they were complaining… not us… ) The reason it was high is because that is where we do our electric welding, heavy grinding and drilling when making repairs around the facility. Finally, about five days ago, they just came and cut the feeder cable to that building leaving our maintenance shed with no electricity.

We had two choices. Either take a complaint to the local government which may or may not ever be resolved or take care of the problem our self. We elected to go with the second choice, so the boys started digging. We had to bury sixty meters of electric cable (approximately 185 feet) inside electric conduit from our main switch/meter panel to the maintenance shed which also including tunneling under an eight foot wide sidewalk.

Jim and Joey worked at tunneling on one side of the sidewalk while Paul and Dennis worked on the other. When they met they discovered they had done a slight miscalculation as one side was about twelve inches deeper than the other. But they were happy they finally made it through. Above left, Jim works on the home made “tunnel spade” and above right Dennis works to meet him.

Above left, Dennis takes a breather while Paul works at the tunnel and above right, Jim removes some of the dirt.

David isn’t in the above pictures because at certain times of the day our smaller children are allowed to play in our small pond and he serves as life guard during that time. You can read about that in our next Post.

Thank you for visiting our web site.

Suddenly this strange feeling came over him and he had this sensation as if he was going to faint. It felt like his desk chair was moving back and forth (sideways) and like his head was spinning… his first thought was he had made a mistake and taken his meds twice and was having some side effects to that. He leaned back in the chair but that didn’t help. The movement continued.

He sat up in the chair and for some reason looked around the room and realized the office door was swinging open and shut. Since he had spent many years in Japan as a small boy, he was somewhat familiar with earthquakes so quickly knew what was happening and ran for the front door. As he ran, he started yelling at anyone who could hear him to evacuate the buildings while at the same time being grateful most of the children were at school. (A false reassurance that only came to realization later since our facility is built better than the school’s.) No one else was in the house at that time. As he ran past the living room, he saw the Canary cage that hangs there swinging back and forth as though being push by a great wind. Of course the Canary wasn’t bothered by it at all!

As soon as he was outside the movement stopped and all was quite. Another day at the Home of Hope.

Soon news reports started coming in and initially, and as is always the case, there were no injuries and no damage but the news went on to say that later that night, maybe around 11:00 PM we would experience another earthquake. We guessed this is the way they describe aftershocks. Later into the next day and the day after true reports began to filter through about the carnage, death and destruction in WenChuan County and the close surrounding areas of the SiChuan indigenous region. Such a very sad and terrible thing. It has been reported that people in places as far away as Beijing, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan felt the initial quake.

Many have written and asked how the earthquake effected us and if we are OK. So we thought we would post this page. Also many have asked were we are in relation to the epicenter of the earthquake. Below we have two maps, one showing the USA and one showing China and offer some comparison to known location in the States and locations in China to compare with to give one a little better feel for the various locations.

Most Internet Browsers will allow you to “right mouse” click on the photos and you can download them to view in a larger scale.

Several things to notice:

• The epicenter of the earthquake (see the China map) was about the same area that would be a little north of Dallas, Texas on the USA map

• The Gongyi HOH is located in an area that would be somewhere in the vicinity of South Western Ohio on the USA map and is indicated by the top left house of one of the three houses that show our two Home of Hope locations and the proposed third location to be opened soon.

• The XuZhou HOH is located about 298 miles East of our Gongyi facility

• For orientation purposes a person can imagine Beijing and Detroit, Michigan being somewhat in similar locations.

Maps are the courtesy of Google Earth.

We want to thank everyone who has written and voiced concern for our welfare and the welfare of the children. As far as the earthquake is concerned we suffered no damage or injury. Thank you for your prayers.

The Home of Hope Children Give

We give the children allowance money each week to teach them the value of money and how to save and be responsible to buy their own things like pencils, paper and small things they need as well as small snack and things. Depending on the age of the child they get from 2.30 Yuan to 15.00 Yuan per week. The college age children qualify for the 15.00 Yuan and the primary school age children receive the 2.30 Yuan. 2.30 Yuan is about .33 cents US and 15.00 Yuan is about 2.15 dollars US. The allowances are handed out on Saturdays.

Today the children asked if they could get their allowance early this week so they could send money to SiChuan to help in the relief effort for the victims of the earthquake. This afternoon they turned in 295.00 Yuan (about 41.40 US Dollars) to the victim relief fund. We are sure happy to see them learning to have a heart to help others.

There will be a new post shortly showing our current activities. Thank You for being part of the Home of Hope Orphanages in China.

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.

Nathan knew something was in the air but wasn’t sure what and then the children came over and told him it was time for his birthday party.

The above picture was the gift the children had arranged for their Ye Ye and even though they had made the picture that day at around lunch time they had managed to organize it without our knowing anything about it… Now that’s quite a chore since the picture was taken in front of our house. This is one of the rare occasions when all the children were home and even the college students managed to get home for the birthday festivities.

When we walked in, all the children were there, seated and obviously in a high spirit of celebration. It was really cute. As we looked around the dining room, now set up for a birthday party, it was obvious that the college age children were totally responsible for this and not some of the staff.

We noticed that the soda cans were arranged in a heart. Above left, the heart and above right, Sam and Hank with the soda cans.

Hank and Sam did the work of the ‘Masters of Ceremony’ - and did an excellent job with Hank speaking Chinese and Sam translating - and there were many speeches given by various children about what the Home of Hope meant to them.

Then Hank talked about how the college students were all away at college now and that the other children now needed to take up the role of being the example for the younger children. Hank went on to explain that even though he and the other six college students were away at school and after they graduated would be finding jobs and going out into society on their own, the Home of Hope would always be their home and all of the children would always be brothers and sisters to each other.

He then called the oldest child of each age group to the front and had them give a short speech to their individual age group about how they needed to continue the Home of Hope tradition of learning good character and doing well in school. How they all needed to study hard and prepare for going out into the society as individual success stories.. to be able to contribute to society rather than just be ‘takers’ from society. There were both tears and laughter making this birthday a very touching and moving experience.

First he called Jim (above left) to represent the high school students and then Gail (above right) to represent the middle school students.

Then little Tony came up and represented the primary school students. It is amazing what these children can say at times. It was all very touching.

Then they called Ye Ye (Nathan) to the front and presented him with his birthday gift… it was the above group picture all framed and ready for hanging on the wall.

Nathan was very surprised and was so happy to receive such a wonderful gift for his birthday.

Then it was time for the cake. The cake had “Happy Birthday - You are the light of our life” written on it.

Then Ye Ye said a few words and thanked all the children for the lovely birthday party and proceeded to tell them how he appreciated the beautiful words on the cake but the truth is that God was the light of our life and if it was not for God brining us all together none of this would have ever happened.

Earlier, the college students had asked to take Nathan out for his birthday so we all went out to eat (including Ben and Michelle Godard working at the Gongyi Home of Hope in training for managing Home of Hope number three to be opened soon). The above picture was taken at the restaurant and the children paid for the meal with their allowance money they had saved. Left to right, top to bottom is Hank, Sam, David, Julie, Logan, Holly, Nathan and Michelle Godard.

It is like these children really want to get the message through that they are not small children any longer and they really want to help in any way possible to make the Home of Hope a better and better place.

You the viewer can look at these pictures and enjoy them but how we wish you could look at the faces of the individual children with all the memories we have that span the last nine years as these ‘once little ones’ have grown and developed into the awesome young adults they have now become.

All in all it was a wonderful birthday for Nathan and it was just one more thing to reinforce the fact that all of this is really, really worth the effort. Not that the children prepare the birthday party on their own, but it is the idea behind it. The Home of Hope has truly become a large family with so much love and mutual appreciation at all the various age levels. A great and beautiful time!

We have several back to back surgeries scheduled for this Spring with Rachel Xiong Xin’s (above) being the first (Scheduled for the middle of March) followed by Dawn and then Charity. However, and as is often the case things did not work out as planned.

We had already finished all the preliminary tests for Rachel including her blood work up and were set for her surgery to be done the following Monday when the hospital told us she needed two months of compression therapy on her nose/gum area to force the excessive protrusion of her nose/gum area back into a more suitable position.

The doctors are afraid with Rachel’s upper gum protruding as much as is does (above left) the surgery to her lip and nose area could very easily fail. We are aware of this problem due to the fact the first surgery on Isaac Ma Shi Hao (see the page “Isaac Tugs on our Heart Strings” to learn more about Isaac) also failed for the same reason. Actually, by comparing the two side by side pictures above (Rachel on the left and Isaac on the right) one can see the great similarity between the initial problem both of these babies had when they arrived at the Home of Hope.

In Isaac’s case we started him on the compression therapy after his first surgery failed. In Rachel’s case we have delayed her surgery for two more months in an attempt to get the protruding nose/gum area to recess back a little bit so there won’t be so much pressure on the surgery area when she does have her first surgery.

When we started Isaac on his therapy we could not find a suitable device to help him so we made our own. Eventually by trial and error we came up with a good system which we are now using on Rachel.

From the look of the two pictures above it appears Rachel is in a lot of pain. She is not! She is however, highly aggravated and agitated over having to wear this thing that she never had to deal with before.

The compression device is made of soft cloth and low tension elastic. The idea is not to exert a lot of pressure but rather provide continuous, light pressure over a long period of time to pull the protruding gum/nose area back in place to some degree.

After just a few short seconds Rachel is back to normal with that great personality we have all learned to love.

As you can see by comparing Dawn’s upper palate (above left) with Rachel’s upper palate (above right) Dawn’s is pretty much in one piece as it should be but Rachel’s is split in two. The split palate often creates problems in the future with sinus and ear infections and also hinders the child to speak clearly without good speech therapy.

No two children are exactly the same. As an example, Autumn Xiong Duo speaks very clear where as Mosie Xiong En has just started speech therapy he needs in the worst way to learn to speak clearly.

Some have asked us how successful our surgery program really is. We feel it is very successful and especially when you compare the worst case situation we have dealt with in the past… that of Isaac Ma Shi Hao (see above and the picture below) and how he turned out after multiple surgeries with two left to go a couple of years in the future. We are confident Rachel’s surgery will be just as successful.

It turned out the note was from Isaac Ma Shi Hao and it was written to his Nai Nai and Ye Ye. (Grandma and Grandpa) He dictated what he wanted to say to his kindergarten teacher and she wrote it down for him.

Before we give you the translation, we though we would show you a slide show of Isaac’s six years plus at the Home of Hope.

Isaac came to us as an abandoned baby in November of 2001 with one of the worst cases of cleft lip - cleft palate we had seen until that time.

The hospital called us an told us his family was going to abandon him because of his physical appearance. His mother had been told by the rest of the family that he died in childbirth and the father was in total agreement with the grandparents on both sides that he should be done away with. The end result was that Isaac is part of the Home of hope now and is a lovely and vivacious little guy!

So, when we got the translated note back we were really moved by what it said and felt we should share it with our Home of Hope friends! Here is what Isaac wrote:

Grandpa and Grandma… Hello! I am Isaac. I love you! My best friends are you! You love us and take care of us like God does. I love everybody here.

I like writing letter to Grandpa and Grandma. I want to tell Grandpa I like playing basketball and want to tell Grandma I like drawing pictures.

I was very happy on Christmas because I got a present. Spring festival was good too! Many children went to their villages.

This year I do very well. The teachers let me sweep the floor in the afternoon. I sweep the floor till it is very clean. I play with the children in the afternoon. I am very happy. I love my teacher. She has lessons every day for us… dancing and reading books.

I want to give you a present. I want to make you happy!

Life here at the Home of Hope is very rewarding!

The above is a short paragraph taken from our “Grand Opening” web page from back in February 2000 where Shannie and Nathan gave individual impressions of the Grand Opening day for the Home of Hope. This year things worked out so neat as far as Time Lines go.
The children came to see Nathan (still pretty much confined to “immobility” with only short excursions outside as his surgery mends.) and asked if he could manage to come outside for about five minutes during the afternoon on “Lantern Festival Day”.
Having so many things going on Nathan wasn’t very quick in figuring out what was going on but the begging looks on the children’s faces made it impossible to reject their pleas. It was agreed that at 2:00 in the afternoon the next day, the children would come and “wheel” him outside.
Chinese New Years is a study in culture like no other Holiday we know about. Each day of the New Years - fifteen days to be exact - has a requirement for each person to follow. The first day the family is together. Then during the next few days the Uncle and his family on the Father’s side is visited… then the Uncle on the Mother’s side is visited. The the Grandparents following the same protocol and there are many such things that are done on certain days during the New Years Festival… There are certain foods that need to be eaten on certain days… and the list goes on!

Of course all of this is very difficult for a foreigner to keep track of so we just depend on our children and staff to keep us informed as to what should be done tomorrow.

However, one thing we know is the last day of New Years… (the fifteenth day). The fifteenth day is the New Years Lantern Festival. It is quite pretty and romantic actually in that everywhere you will find the red lanterns hanging… large, huge, small and tiny. And in Gongyi, Lantern Festival always ends with a huge fireworks display in the center of town.

So as the children left Nathan was thinking they must have something cooked up to celebrate Lantern Festival. Maybe fireworks or something.

What a surprise……..

When Nathan got outside, he found many of the children gathered around the front gate.
A slight dread came over him as he initially thought some government dignitaries were coming to visit (which is common during this time). But he soon realized that was not the case… as he looked around and questioned various children as to what was going on, more and more of the kids came out from their dorms and very soon all the children and staff were standing there.

Then he saw it!

In China, every licensed and/or permitted entity must display a bronze plaque in the front of their property in close proximity to the entrance gate.
The plaque shown on the right was donated to the Home of Hope by the Gongyi Government at our Grand Opening in February 2000. It used to be very nice and shiny. Shiny brass (not real of course) with black lettering in Chinese and English saying the Gongyi Home of Hope. Over the years it has become tarnished and has lost it’s luster.

What Nathan saw was very different…

As he wheeled closer and closer to the gate he saw Hank standing there holding a brand new plaque, identical to the one the government had given us eight years ago but so shiny and new. (The dark place you see in the picture are reflections of the trees behind the group) Only this time the children had ‘pooled’ their meager savings (from their weekly allowances) and purchased the plaque by them selves.
And then it hit Nathan…. today was our eighth anniversary of the Home of Hope being in operation. Eighth anniversary, Lantern Festival and beautiful weather (later that night to have a full moon)… all coming together at the same time. My how God smiles on us here.

Then, just like he did at our Grand Opening eight years ago in front of the little rented house that was to serve as our first Home of Hope location and house our first eleven children, Hank gave another speech! This time instead of their being three housemothers and ten other children in the audience, we now have twenty-two plus workers and sixty children.

Hank talked about how much the Home of Hope meant to him and how he was speaking for all the children. What a difference the Home of Hope had made in their lives. How before, all of them were going head on into nowhere… a life without hope or a chance to do anything with their lives… and then the Home of Hope came along… He talked about how good God had been to us all and how we had grown from a small family of eleven to this large family. He spoke of the Home of Hope with love and affection and talked about the warmth of spirit and how there was so much happiness in our home.

Of Course, Nathan was moved to tears as he sat there and listened, forgetting the pain in his foot and allowing his mind to wonder back over the last eight years… my… and it seemed like only a day or two ago Shannie, Amber, Aaron and himself had left for China… ! Who would have ever known? Who could have foreseen this day?
After that Hank asked Nathan to say a few words which he did, although it wasn’t all that easy… he seemed to have a frog in his throat…

Then at the end of Nathan’s few, short words, the fireworks started… This is a typical part of celebrations of any kind in China from weddings to funerals and everything in between.

Strings of firecrackers going off in a steady “crack” with an occasional “M-80″ booming and shaking all the buildings around us.

At the end of the celebration, Nathan asked the children if they wanted to go into town that night to see the Gongyi City fireworks display. Of course that was a “waste of breath” question… and so it was agreed they would leave on the Home of Hope bus at 6:30 to get their early enough to find a decent place to watch from.

Then the children started begging Nathan to go along saying how they would take turns pushing him in the wheel chair and would make sure he was comfortable… and thinking, “why not”… he agreed.

The Gongyi fireworks are a truly extravaganza in that they last for more than an hour with no interruption between them… on right after another…

While we were watching the fireworks the children kept asking if we could put some pictures of the fireworks on the Home of Hope web site. Nathan agreed, although knowing that plain pictures of fireworks in a night’s sky aren’t too appealing to those who weren’t there to really enjoy them… thus the four pictures below…

We hope you enjoyed this update…

Blessings!

Nathan posing in front of the new plaque, showing the children that he can stand for a short time on the cast/brace the doctors have fitted him with. He will be ready for volley ball and swimming by summer!