This Spring they indicated they wanted to hold a youth camp at the Gongyi HOH facility for BOTH the Gongyi children and the XuZhou children. We thought this was an awesome idea and so plans were made and eventually implemented.

There were five days of awesome teaching, playing, developing new friends, (all of the HOH children – XuZhou and Gongyi – had never been together in one place before) and just an “all around” great time!

Bob Sayre loaded up the XuZhou Home of Hope children on a large bus and headed to Gongyi. They arrived in the late morning and it wasn’t long (even before the Youth Camp was formally kicked off) before the XuZhou children discovered the Gongyi Home of Hope pond.

Up until this year the pond was actually a fish pond but we removed the fish and added a chlorination system to the pond so now the water is nice and clean and the children love to get in the pond to cool off during the hot summer days. The pond is only two feet deep. Even so we have very strict rules and of course the children’s safety is our very first concern!

As the XuZhou children started playing in the water it wasn’t long before several of the HOH children joined them. It was really cool to watch these “distant” brothers and sisters begin to develop bonds with each other and as the days passed by, there was a real sense of long lasting relationships being made.

Even though Ben and Michelle split the children into three teams, “Dogs” (Depend on God), “Frogs” (Forever relay on God) and “Joy” (Jesus, Others, Yourself) which created a great sense of competition, the children remained kind and considerate toward each other throughout.

Each team made their own flag and one of the older children was assigned “Captain” for the team!

Hank Cao Hai Kui headed up the team “DOG”

Brian Ren Bin Ke headed up the team “FROG”

David Zhang Hai Tao headed up the team “JOY”

From human wheel barrow races to a tour of some historic spots in Gongyi…..

…to a tug of war contest gone astray to a food eating contest….

…. to designing our own “T” shirts….. and then showing them off! Isn’t this one pretty?

…. midnight volley ball to cheering on the “Joy” team! We all had a great time!

And as happens to all good things, the time came to say good bye! The XuZhou children headed back to XuZhou with Bob Sayre and the GongYi children got back to work doing their summer chores!

A great, big, Texas “Atta Boy” to Ben and Michelle for a job well done… lot’s and lot’s of work on their part in preparation and in managing the day to day activities! Great Job!

Everyone decided we really want to do this again next year! Won’t you come join us?

Some more snapshots of the Gongyi – XuZhou Home of Hope Youth Camp. Too many activities to list or show but one can be sure it was a wonderful time during the hotest part of the year! Everyone can’t wait until next year so we can do it all over again, only bigger and better!

We had a good idea of what was going on (it was Nathan’s birthday) but we went over pretending we had no idea what was happening.

As we entered the dining room door all the children stood up and in unison said “Happy Birthday Ye Ye”.

This year it is difficult to get all the children together at one time, with some of them attending university and a few of the children attending High School at schools that require they dorm at the school during the week

When we have birthday parties we have a set routine we go through. First of all the birthday boy or girl is called to the front where their birthday cake is sitting on a table. Then we sing “Happy Birthday” and then the birthday person has to give a speech. Next he/she has pictures taken with his/her dorm mates and then the cake is cut and shared with everyone.

This night was no different. Hank was the master of ceremonies and he followed the normal routine to the “T”.

First Ye Ye had to give a speech… (above far left) The children asked to hear the story (again) about how the Home of Hope was started. Then Ye Ye blew out the candles (above center left.) Next a pictures was taken with Ye Ye’s room mates… (all the children and attending staff – below), then Ye Ye cut the cake and shared it with everyone!

Nathan was also given a large birthday card the children made themselves and each child had written something in the card along with signing his/her name.

Ye Ye choked-up a couple of times due to the memories of each child that came flooding into his mind as he read each little sentence the children had written.
It was a great evening and the night was capped off with all of the children wanted to play the game Hum Dum…

If you don’t know how the game “Hum Dum” is played, we appologize! It is too difficult to explain it in this format. We moved the tables out of the way and everyone who wanted to play sat in a circle and we played the game for over an hour.

What a great evening! Much laughter and an abundance of joy!

Oh… how old is Ye Ye? Well, since Ye Ye is the one who does this web site, that information is going to remain private!

We took Jenny, Sam, Julie, and three of the staff with us to also answer questions if the audience wanted to talk to them about their life and working at the orphanage. Jenny was sitting on the side watching the proceedings and when I was telling the audience about my family back home and about the passing of my father, she ran up and sat on my lap. It was quite an ice breaker to say the least. The audience broke into applause which I think shocked the host and hostess. However, even though Jenny is quite the “ham” she would not talk to the audience. I am sure she was completely overwhelmed by the thought of being on TV.

There were about 300 to 400 people in the studio audience and they consisted of people from all walks of life. University students, news reporters, government officials and professional people from various occupations.

It was quite an interesting program and needless to say it gave the Home of Hope substantial exposure throughout the country. It must have made quite an impact. The next day I left for Beijing for Isaac‘s surgery and no sooner had I arrived in Beijing I received a call from my assistant in Gongyi telling me the police were at the orphanage. They wanted to go through all the rooms in the orphanage and “have a look.” He was rather shaken I think but I told him to be cordial with the police and give them free access to everything we had there. They visited for several hours and then sent me word that if I ever needed their help to just call them.