Today is August 20th and it is the first day of the Home of Hope Kindergarten.

Above and seated, left to right are Ruthie, Rose, Isaac, Gracie, Autumn and Mosie. Behind them are the teachers, Cui Xiao Jie, Michelle Godard and Zhao Cai Xia. Michelle will teach the children English and the two certified Chinese teachers will teach the children all the other subjects.

For a very long time we have wanted to have a school associated with the Home of Hope. Several years ago we attempted to open an English school but due to licensing requirements we had to take on a Chinese partner to satisfy the government regulations and it just didn’t work out.

Now we have the Home of Hope Kindergarten. It is small. For now it is just for our own children. This year we will have seven full time students and four part time students. We use the term “part time” because the part time students are still very young so they only join in for the singing, dancing and exercise classes.

The full time students are:

Issac Ma Shi Hao left and Autumn Xiong Duo right

Ruthie Xiong Shan left and Moses Xiong En (Mosie) right

Gracie Xiong Ya left and Jackson Godard right

Rose Xiong Ai left and Caleb Xiong Qiang (part time) right

Abby Joy Xiong Miao Yin (part time) left and Eli Godard (part time) right

Mary Xiong Xiao (part time)

Just a couple of days ago our kindergarten furniture was delivered. New “little ones” sized chairs, tables, book cases, file racks and miscellaneous items for the day to day activities of the kindergarten. The older boys of the Home of Hope helped to assemble the furniture.
There is a fresh excitement in the air as the older children realize that all of these babies were abandoned and taken in when they were new born and now they are starting kindergarten in our own Home of Hope Kindergarten. So Cool!

Additional snapshots of the new Home of Hope Kindergarten. A lot of interesting things happened today.. the first day… and there will be many more! We will update this page as often as we can! Wont you come visit us sometime? That would be very, very nice!
So come on over!

It was about 4:00 AM and we were in Beijing after getting Aaron Xiong Wei all settled in at the care facility where he will be for the next six weeks. ( see Aaron Xiong Wei to Beijing ) The phone rang, slowly bringing us out of a well deserved rest.

It was the guard at the Home of Hope calling to tell me there was an abandoned baby outside our gate.

Most of the staff on duty that night were relatively new and had never handled a situation like this. We carefully walked them through the process (by phone) from calling the police out to verify the baby had indeed been abandoned at our gate, to getting him settled in the nursery’s sick room for the night… after a bath and good feeding. We always put the new arrivals in the sick room until we are sure they have nothing contagious that could affect the other nursery children.

We also instructed them to take pictures of the entire process and in the morning they were to take him to the hospital for the normal exam we give all our incoming newbies… we check for hepatitis, aids and other forms of physical ailments and handicaps.

Being new to the situation, they failed to take this little guy’s picture while he was still in the cardboard box he arrived in so after his bath, they put him back in the box and took the above pictures.

We were hesitant to show these pictures since they were not taken in ‘real time’, rather about forty minutes after his arrival. However, we decided that with this explanation included it would be good for our friends and supporters to see how he actually arrived.

While all of this excitement was going on in Gongyi, we were finally getting up and getting to the train station to return home. Mosie and Ruthie were excited about the idea of a new brother arriving at the Home of Hope and kept saying they couldn’t wait to get home to see him.

By the time we arrived back in Gongyi, his physical exams were over and now we are only waiting for the results of his blood tests. This travel time gave us a chance to think about a name for this little guy and as always we chose the Chinese name first which is Xiong Qi. The meaning of this name is “Stands firm” so we then gave him the English name “Daniel“.

Upon arriving back home we made a bee line to the Nursery and there he was… Daniel Xiong Qi all safe and clean… bundled up in new pajamas and sleeping soundly, although appearing to be ready to wake up and cry for his lunch.

Welcome to the Home of Hope Daniel… with your new family!

On August 8th, little Aaron Xiong Wei joined the Home of Hope. You can read about his arrival in the update titled “Unexpected Visitor”. Aaron’s overall health is excellent! However he does have, what is called in layman’s terms, a ‘club foot’. You can see the condition of his foot by looking closely at his right leg in the picture above.

On the 29th of August we took Aaron to Beijing to begin the casting treatment to correct this problem. The earlier this type situation is addressed, the better the results.

Early on the morning of the 29th (we had to leave the Home of Hope at 5:15 AM to get to the ZhengZhou train station in time for the train we had purchased tickets for) the Nursery Nannies dressed Aaron and got him ready for the trip.

He slept through the entire process. (left)
Abby Joy and Rose sensed something was in the air and they both crawled into the little bed where Aaron was laying and just sort of sat there with a look on their faces like “…what’s next?” (right)

We are always amazed at how quickly the little ones get attached to each other! Such an amazing thing to watch take place!
We elected to take Mosie and Ruthie along for the trip and at 7:00 AM we boarded the new ZhengZhou to Beijing train. In the picture above are Mosie, Ruthie and Home of Hope Nursery Nanny, ‘Li Sheng’ holding little Aaron.

Mosie and Ruthie were intrigued with the style of the new train and were very excited to be making the trip. Their first train ride that they were aware of although they had both been to Beijing for surgeries when they too were infants. Aaron slept ‘like a baby’ for most of the trip. This train is a new train in China and it makes the ‘used to be’ seven to eight hour trip in just over four hours.


As soon as we arrived at the treatment center, Aaron was given a complete physical and the doctor determined that the prognosis on his condition was 100% cure.


After the medical exam was finished, Aaron was placed in the care of the facility’s own Nursery Nannies and they began to care for him which they will be doing for the next six weeks.

Every few days, Aaron’s casting will be removed and replaced with a new cast as his foot begins to take it’s normal shape and position.

We are excited with anticipation of what we know is going to be a complete cure for this little life that God has placed in our care! It is such an awesome thing to realize that the Home of Hope is indeed making a difference in the lives of so many children who otherwise, would be hopelessly, helpless!

Please remember Aaron Xiong Wei in your prayers!

Many of you who have been following the Gongyi Home of Hope since the beginning, are aware of the fact that we have been negotiating with the government in trying and trying to get HUKOUs for the abandoned babies who are left at our gate. These babies have no information as to who they are or who their parents are. A Hukou is a legitimate identification (similar to the Western Birth Certificate) for the Chinese people and without one, a person can’t get an education, find a job, travel on public transportation or do much of anything. Many times we have sunk into despair over this issue then finally leaving it all in God’s hands. In the pictures above, each child is holding his/her Hukou (The blue book). Top right moving clockwise is Autumn, Dawn, Ruthie, Jacob, Mary, Beau, Caleb, Rachel, Abby Joy, Gracie, Rose and Mosie.

A few days ago, out of the blue, the head of the local government, Mr. Wang Xiao Ping (actually he is the head of the Gongyi County Communist Party) called and said they wanted to meet with us. We were not all that impressed with the fact they wanted another meeting but when it was over we were given the promise that our children would have their Hukous in two days! We most certainly didn’t believe it! It had been too long…. too many unrealized promises and it was just too much to believe!

But… two days later they called us and said we could come down and get all the abandoned baby’s Hukous which means they are now recognized citizens of the People’s Republic of China in the custodial care of the Home of Hope as their guardian.

There is no longer any fear that at some point some irate government underling might come and say we had these children illegally and take them away. No more worries about how we will get them in school.

For all of you who prayed and believed with us about this, we Thank You! God is faithful!

Home of Hope Slide Show!
We will continue to attempt to provide our viewers and supporters with this type of Photo Album slide show with each update. We take many pictures of our children that are not always used on the actual web page. We thought it would be nice to allow those people interested in seeing more pictures to see them in this mannerWe hope you enjoy and “Thank You” for visiting!

We had slowly been developing a relationship with the Mayor of Gongyi but suddenly he was gone along with many of the other bureau leaders of high ranking. Knowing that favor with the government is a primary pre-requisite for the type work we do here, we began to attempt to contact the new Mayor. We had no success. As the weeks went by we realized we were hearing nothing about the new Mayor but everyone was talking about the new head of the Gongyi County Communist Party, Mr. Wang Xiao Ping.
Actually, he is the highest ranking officer in the government and he was making many changes quite rapidly in Gongyi. He started a major drive to beautify the city! Started building new and repairing existing roads. Traffic law enforcement was seen to be improving rapidly and at night one would see more and more police on the street where before one could not be found after dark. Everyone was talking about Wang Xiao Ping! Most favorably and some a little disgruntled (which is always the case) if one happened to own a business and had received an order to make his place of business more presentable. People were finding that ignoring a request to repair their business sign would result in a team showing up in a couple of days to tear it down! Things were happening like we hadn’t seen them happen here before.

We decided that if anyone could help us it would be him so we contacted him. A few days ago he came to visit. He even brought his wife and daughter which is quite unusual. We had a great visit which culminated in our children getting their Hukous.

Left to right above: #1 – Mr Zhang, Nathan, Mosie and Ruthie in front, Wang Xiao Ping’s daughter, Wang Xiao Ping and his wife. #2 – Nathan giving them a tour of the facility. #3 – Wang Xiao Ping and Nathan discussing various situations in the HOH office. #4 – Nathan sharing some humorous things with Wang Xiao Ping and #5 – Telling them good bye as Wang Xiao Ping and his family leave.

One day during early Spring we were all outside enjoying the end of Winter and the fine weather that precedes the hot and sticky days of summer. Many of the children were on some type of “riding” device (bicycles, scooters, cars, roller skates roller blades and skate boards) and they ended up racing around and around on the Home of Hope sidewalks. Some of them just ran on foot!

Nathan was able to get this little group stopped long enough for a picture. Left to right and back to front are Gracie on her bike, Autumn on her bike Mosie on his bike, Isaac on his bike and Ruthie on her bike with little Rose on her six wheeled ‘something or another’ (she can really make it go fast… it’s pretty neat… moves by her moving the steering wheel back and forth… they didn’t have this type of thing when we were kids… would really like to try it… ).

And they are off! Started out with Isaac in the lead then Ruthie but it wasn’t long before Peter on his little scooter took over the lead! Then along came Vincent on his roller blades and no one else had a chance! But Mosie was bound and determined to catch up and take the lead and the pictures below show what happened!

Mosie took off with what, over time, we have learned is a very strong look of determination. As you can tell by the first series of pictures he started off in the back of the pack. He gradually got closer to the lead and was doing really good until he got to the turn.
At that point his little bike just slid out from under him… (top center) and he slid a couple of feet… (top right). He is five years old and for a second or two it appeared as if it was all over and the tears would start but instead he got up, picked up his bike and took off again! Great little guy!

All in all the kids had a great afternoon but they finally had to take a rest!

At the left is Vincent resting with his roller blades still in place. We have featured Vincent a few weeks back but he is simply a great little guy and is doing so good in school. Very level headed and all the other children really love him for his personality and over all character. We are very proud of him.

Generally when a new child comes to us it takes a couple of years for them to totally adapt to our environment and house rules. At times we forget Vincent is one of the new children at the Home of Hope.

Keep it up Vincent!

While we were taking the pictures of the children riding there “wheeled things” and racing around the Home of Hope side walks we happened to notice Linda Wei Ling Yu standing by one of our palm trees and just watching the children as they sped around the track.

We knew what she was doing and sure enough when Mosie had his little mishap, she was the first one to reach him to help him up. Many times she is like a little mother with the younger children and when one of the nursery workers has to have a day off one can often find Linda there working with the babies and helping out. (On those days when she has no school.)

If you have time please go to our archives page or our children’s page and you can see how she has grown over the years! She is a delight to have at the Home of Hope and a delight to be around. You can see more about her by clicking on her name at the bottom of this page.

As is common with all children, their emotions can change at the drop of a hat.

Here you can follow little Caleb‘s change (left to right, top to bottom) as he goes from happy and laughing to upset and crying and all of this because Li Sheng the house mother on duty at the time wouldn’t let him comb her hair.

Within a few seconds after the last picture on the right was taken, the tears were gone and he was laughing again!

These were our first abandoned babies and have been with us five and a half years at this point. They speak both Chinese and English and cause quite a stir in the local kindergarten they attend.

One day their teacher called and was laughingly telling us how it takes longer for all the children to get out of class in the afternoon because Moses wants to help all the little girls put their coats on! What a gentleman!

When she came to us her little right foot was turned to the right to about 90 degrees.

Every day we give her a minimum of three periods of therapeutic massage pulling her little foot back into position and holding it there for a period of time.

She is now walking and gets around like any other child her age.

We may put her in braces for awhile but as of right now the doctors say she doesn’t need them and that her little feet are developing just like they should.

Left to right, top then bottom: Michael, Gracie, Autumn, Rose, Peter, Isaac and Abby Joy.

It is a true joy to watch these little ones grow up. Michael and Peter are in first grade now and this fall Gracie, Autumn and Isaac will be starting kindergarten.

November Birthdays

At the beginning of November we started something new at the Home of Hope. Every Sunday night we celebrate all the birthdays for the previous week. This month we had several. Glen and Esther both share the same birthday of November 21st. They had a beautiful cake and each of them received a nice card signed by all their brothers and sisters in the Home of Hope. YeYe (Grandpa [Nathan Bell]) is the last to sign the card and the children can’t wait to find someone to translate the words that YeYe writes on the card.

Little Ruthie Xiong Shan had her first birthday and was a little confused about all the “goings on.” Some very special friends in the United States who have developed a real love for Ruthie sent her some awesome birthday gifts.

She doesn’t like the flash on the camera and the digital camera we use has a pre flash that is designed to take the red out of people’s eyes caused by the flash. This always alerts Ruthie that a flash is about to take place and she closes her eyes and turns her head making it so difficult to get a good picture. We got lucky here.

June’s Birthday was on November 9th. This was the first time she had ever had a cake made in her honor and she was so happy. You can see the big smile on her face as she cuts pieces of cake for all the other children in the Home of Hope.

One of the traditions in China is to have a cake fight after the preliminaries are over. They did it on June’s Birthday.. later she was covered with pink and white creamed icing!

This was also Jerry and Hazel‘s birthday. Jerry’s birthday is on November 4th and Hazel’s birthday is also on November 4th. We checked and double checked the personal information cards of these children this month as it is really coincidental that two pairs of children have birthdays on the same day in the same month. It is such a joy to observe the difference in these children from a little over a year ago when they came to us the first time.

Other Events

Remembering the difficulties of last winter… the days without electricity and because we heated with electricity… no heat.. we decided to install a coal fired boiler system to heat the facilities for the Home of Hope.

The boiler was delivered in early November and has made such a difference. The coal will be a substantial cost savings over the electric and that savings will more than cover the expense of installing the unit. A big “Thank You” to all of you who contributed to make this system a reality.

Above is Roland Ashby, director of Strategic Alliance, and an eighty plus year old lady. If you look real close you can see her feet were bound as a child.

On November 28th some dear friends of the Home of Hope arrived in Gongyi, China all the way from San Antonio, Texas. They brought gifts to the children and more importantly A LOT OF LOVE!.

The group had lunch with the children and said they really enjoyed it. The fare was Chinese dumplings and Hot and Sour Soup. The children love to watch the foreigners try to eat with the chopsticks. They often think it is the first time they have ever tried it.

There were a lot of pictures taken during this visit but we really liked this one. It is probably the first time anyone ever just sat down, laid back and rested in the three wheel cart the Home of Hope staff uses to go to the market every day to buy groceries.

November also saw the calendar move around and all the children were given preventative injections as suggested by the Chinese Medical Association here in Gongyi. The service was provided free by the Women’s and Children’s Hospital of Gongyi that we have developed a good relationship with.

Excitement never ceases here in China. First of all on October 14th, late at night the police brought us an abandoned newborn baby, and we named him Xiong En “Moses.” Not long after that, many friends sent us a box full of “baby shower” things for Moses. Strangely enough, some of the clothes they sent were little baby girl clothes… you know… pinks and frills and the like. We kind of chuckled at first and then it hit me. We are being prepared for more of this! Wow… what a thought.

Moses was premature by about three weeks and has a major cleft palate which we are going to have surgically corrected in the Beijing Children’s Hospital sometime in December, or as soon as the funds come in for the surgery. He is growing, gaining weight and has now started making the normal “cooing” baby noises that all normal babies make.

It was nip and tuck for the first couple of weeks but he is doing fine now. We have been so amazed at how small he is. Small in our eyes, that is, until today.

It is 11:30 PM, November 28, 2000 as I write this, and we no longer think of Moses as “small.” Today we were brought a precious little baby girl. As soon as we saw and held her we realized how much Moses has grown during the last month. He actually seems huge next to this tiny newborn.

An off-duty policeman came to our door a little after 10:00 AM and told us how eleven days ago he found a newborn baby dumped on the street with a note attached to its rag wrapping that said it had just been born. Not having any way of feeding the baby, he took it to the hospital where they fed it by IV. The hospital bill was running up and the policeman could not pay for it. He and his wife really wanted to keep this little baby but they were informed that since they already had a child and the one child rule cannot be violated, he would lose his job if they kept the baby. The couple didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t pay to get the little girl out of the hospital and even if they could they couldn’t keep her because he would lose his job. They thought of the “Home of Hope.”

This tiny, precious baby girl is one month premature and has only been fed intravenously since birth. We immediately named her Ruth after several wonderful ladies in our lives… My own Mother, Ruth Bell who has nurtured and guided my life for so many years; Ruth Rogers, a wonderful friend and the Website Mistress for the Home of Hope; her mother Ruth Edwards, a lifelong friend, and of course the Ruth of “Ruth” in the Old Testament.

Ruth’s Chinese surname is Xiong. Two years ago the Chinese gave me the Chinese surname “Xiong”, which means “Bear”, and the Chinese given name of “Fan” which means “humility”. Xiong Fan. We have given both Moses and Ruth the surname “Xiong”, and we gave Moses the given name “En” which means “restoration”. We have not decided on a given name for Ruth as yet.

Since the Home of Hope children’s quarters are not yet properly set up for a nursery environment (this was a little unexpected this soon) we have converted an extra room in our apartment into a nursery. There are now two new little lives being sustained, nourished and loved here twenty four hours a day. We expect that as the word gets out there will be more and more.

We are now in our Phase III fund raising program and as more and more children are brought to us we realize how quickly we must get into our new facility. All of the children at the Home of Hope are doing great. We had three who made perfect scores on their mid term exams this semester: Paul, Lily and Heidi. It is amazing to see them now as we are so conscious of how they were when we first found them. Their eyes are full of hope and expectation where when we first found them their eyes were dull and they had nothing showing on their faces but hopelessness and despair. We extend our heartfelt thanks to all of you who have helped in this great endeavor. Your sacrifices are having eternal impact on so many lives.