The last of our seven university aged children have now gone off to school.

Our pictures of their leaving are somewhat limited because when most of them actually left for college we were in Beijing getting Aaron Xiong Wei set up for his club foot treatment. But we still wanted to share our feelings with you at this time.

The feelings are one of loneliness with a little sadness combined with a sense of great pride at how things have turned out over the years.

The first one to leave was Esther Kang Wen Jun. As you can see from the small inset in the picture on the left there has been major changes in this young lady’s life since she first came to the Home of Hope in 2000 as a little girl!

As she was loading her things in the van and getting ready for the final farewell until at least Christmas or New Years, we could not help but allow our minds wonder back over the last eight years and the fast forward to the present with so many memories of things that have happened and watching her grow during this time.

Esther is attending Mei Yu YuYan Xue Yuan in Beijing. Her major interest is in art but she won’t be getting into that for at least until the second semester.

Esther spent this summer working in the Home of Hope office where she was responsible for doing the data input into our accounting systems. (We use the plural because we have to have two accounting reports.. one for the Chinese government and one for the US Government. She did an excellent job and we are really proud of her!

The next ones to leave were Julie, Holly, Hank and Sam.

Julie is in her second year at Shi Fan Zhuan Ye Xue Yuan in the Northern part of ZhengZhou. She is doing excellent and has turned into a fine young lady. Very dependable and considerate of all around her, beautiful and smart as well!

Julie was in the second group that came into the Home of Hope in July of 2000. She has always seemed very mature for her age and is always helping with the younger children!

She is majoring in commercial art and is truly talented! She picked the right major!

Hank is in his second year at the Cheng Gong Xue Yuan University right here in Gongyi.

This means he gets to come home on the weekends and we are very happy about that. Hank is a great young man and Ye Ye often uses him for translation work.

This summer Hank worked for the Home of Hope on monthly salary and did a great job! He was very excited about his summer job because he got to learn to new techniques, got to work with Ye Ye and earned money at the same time!

Sam also left when Hank and Julie left.

Sam is attending SIAS University in XinZheng. That is the same university that Nathan and Shannon worked at when they first came to China. It was while they were at SIAS University (Shannon teaching and Nathan working as Vice President) they were led to go into the orphanage work and started the Gongyi Home of Hope in February 2000.

Sam was in the second group that came to the Home of Hope in July of 2000. Actually, all these young people joined the Home of Hope in 2000. Some in February and some in July.

The next to leave was David Zhang Hai Tao.

David is attending the Zheng Zhou Jiao Tong Zhi Ye Ji Shu Xue Yuan University in ZhengZhou. David was also in the second group that came to the Home of Hope in July 2000 and we are so very proud of him.

David has shown a real genius for working with computers and he is pursuing that course in his college training!

We know he will do great!

The next to go was Logan.

Logan is attending Shang Qiu Zhi Ye Ji Shu Xue Yuan University in southern Henan, Province. Even Mike, the Home of Hope mascot and guard dog was sad to see her leave!

Logan has been a leader in the chldren’s group since she arrived at the Home of Hope in February 2000 (another one of the first children to join the Home of Hope) and we are very proud of her! She is majoring in art and has a real talent in the field.

As we stated earlier, our pictures of the seven college kids leaving for school is limited because we were in Beijing when most of them left.

You may also have noted that above we show four of the seven standing by the van getting ready to leave, one of them being Holly Hou San Juan, but we have said nothing about her.

Holly was a victim of a very common tragedy in China at this time of year.

She had an invitation to attend a certain university in ZhengZhou but very much like large hotels and motels, they over book. Holly did indeed leave when the others left but when she arrived the school told her there was no room for her and so she had to come back! My what terrible disappointment!

As soon as she got back we went to work finding her another university to go to that wasn’t full already! We were successful and she wasn’t to leave until the day after we returned from Beijing.

Late last night my preset alarm went off at midnight. I rolled out of bed, dressed and went down stairs to take Holly to the train station to catch a train to her new university. She was accepted by Shang Qiu Ke Ji Xue Yuan university, also in Southern Henan.

This was my first real hands on at telling one of these kids goodbye… combined with the late of night and my being tired from the trip to Beijing, it was almost more than we could bare to send this young lady off into the teeming world all by her self.

So many memories came flooding in! The first time we saw her standing outside her little house built back into the mountain side.. The years of cheerfulness she has brought into the Home of Hope. Actually, too many memories to tell, but it was one emotional goodbye.

It is very uncommon in China for people to hug each other good bye in the train station, but as I told her good bye she hugged me and asked me to say a prayer with her before I left!

Like Esther, Holly is some distance from us so won’t be able to visit as often as we would like. We will miss her and can’t wait until Christmas when she comes home for a few days!

As of now each of the children has called to say they are settled in and all is well with them.

We had to obligate ourselves financially this year to get all of these children in college. If you would like to help us settle the outstanding amounts due for these children’s 2007 – 08 school season and contribute to their continued education you can do so by going to our donations page.

Thank you!

Since our last web site update we have had several birthdays. Clockwise starting top left we have Henry He Long Qiang with roomates Hank (on the left) and Jerry; Julie Zhang Yan Yan (now nineteen and entering college this year); Seth Yang Xiao Ke; Michael Yang Wen Bo; Lydia Kang Lin Lin in the center with roomates (left to right) Rena, Heidi, Linda and Gail; Tim Tian Zheng Tu; Logan Zhang Xin Zhuan (also nineteen) and in the center of the group is a picture taken at Paul Yao You Bin’s birthday (Paul is on the left) shown with Nathan and Jim Yang Jin Duo. Nathan is telling Paul that Paul is now taller than Nathan is. How well we remember the first day we ever saw Paul. He barely came above Nathan’s waist back then! My how time flies!

Summer Work – For Pay!

Some of the older children, Sam, Hank, Julie, Holly and Tim asked Yie Yie (Nathan) if they could find a job during the summer this year. They said they were old enough now and really wanted to earn some money during the summer.
We try to paint the interior of the dorm building and the other buildings if possible each summer as by the end of winter the walls are showing the effects of having fifty plus children living there.

We told the children they could work right here if they wanted to, painting the inside of the buildings and they all jumped at the chance! It is almost finished as of this writing and it looks really good!

On the left is Julie Zhang Yan Yan. She is studying art in school so she was elected to do all the detail work. The taping of the windows and doors… door knobs… light switches and plugs then paint the places that took a lot of care so as not to get paint all over the adjacent items. She did a great job!

On the right is our “Handy Man” Tim Tian Zheng Tu… actually that is just what we call him. He follows Nathan around anytime he is not in school and even though he is still in middle school he can weld, do plumbing, fix minor electrical problems and much more. Between Nathan and Hai Tao (our true maintenance man) Tim is learning all he can and says he wants to stay at the Home of Hope when he finished High School and be the General Maintenance man for all the different Home of Hope’s in China.

In the back ground is Sam who graduated from High School this year and is preparing to enter college in the fall.

We painted the downstairs (the boy’s section of the dorm) an eggshell white with a 1 1/2 meter high band in baby blue at the bottom.

Upstairs, which is the girl’s section and also the nursery area, we used the same egg shell white with a very, very light pink band on the bottom.

To the left is Hank Cao Hai Kui who also graduated from high school this year and he too is preparing to enter college this fall.

Both Hank and Sam speak excellent English and so it was very easy for Nathan to give them detailed instructions on how he wanted everything done!

We felt this to be a great thing. We would have had to pay a contractor to come in and do the work as we normally do every year but this year the children who are working on this project earn their own money, are learning about having a work ethic and are helping to improve their own home!

On the right is Hai Tao our general, all purpose, all around…. EVERYTHING! He is our driver, driving the children to the doctor and other places as necessary; driving the house mothers to take the babies to the hospital; going out and negotiating good prices and buying many of the necessary things to keep a place like the Home of Hope operating on a daily basis and when not doing that he teaches the boys and does general maintenance work…

The neatest thing about Hai Tao is just what you see! That perpetual smile! He has been with us for over four years now and we have to say we really can’t remember a single time when he was not smiling!

They went to the XuZhou Home of Hope first and then came to visit the Gongyi facility. As they were leaving we were able to get this picture. Left to right are Ron Bishop, Christi Bishop, Julie, Esther, Bob Sayre, Cindy Sayre, Justin Learned, Linda Thompson, Sam and Wade Thompson. Everyone really enjoyed their visit.

You can see more about their visit by visiting our XuZhou Home of Hope web site, “Our Babies Find New Homes – Visitors”

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.