When we started trying to find different contractors to do the many different kinds of work that needed to be done, we realized that our building funding was at the half way mark and that we needed to decide what construction needed to be completed before the children move in with us and what construction could wait. We decided to put off all remodeling to our home until further funding comes in, but we also decided that another way to save money was to try and do as much construction as we could do.

---

As you might have seen in our past pages we have been slowly building closets in the rooms so that each child has a place to put personal items that they have to not take up the already crowded bedrooms.

Zak (front left) and David (back right) are putting the shelves together.

As you can see in the picture above the closets will be a bit too tall for most of the children, but this gives us room to grow:)

---

When we started looking for beds to be made, we found someone who could make them for $1,500.00. Before we bought them we spoke with Nathan and Shannon Bell (administrators to the Gongyi Home of Hope) and they told us that they also needed to buy new beds because their children were either outgrowing the beds they had or the beds were breaking and not safe to use any more. So we agreed to help each other out and we would buy the smaller beds that were still in good enough condition to use from them, which after paying the delivery truck we saved half the cost of having the beds made!

David waiting in the snow to help unload the beds.

Unfortunately when we planned on the truck coming to pick the beds up from Gongyi and deliver them to us we did not know it was going to be sleeting and snowing all day. It took the truck 11 -12 hours to arrive here in Pingyu, usually it would be 5 hours.

Zak sweeping off the ice and snow from the each bed.

Because of the ice and snow we quickly just put them into our dining hall. The next day we had to cut them all in half because our doors and hallway are a little more narrow then Gongyi’s.

Each room now has 4 bunk beds for the children and 1 single bed for the housemother to use!

Boys room

---

While I (Ben) have been busy with trying to finish the many different smaller construction projects, Michelle has been cleaning out the rooms. Some of the rooms seem like that they have never been cleaned in the two years that the building has been built. When we first moved here one room had a lot of rat poison all of the floor along with about half an inch of concrete dust.

As you can tell by the picture above left, it gets quite dusty when she swept, so she tried covering herself head to toe.

---

Another thing we have accomplished is building shelving for the kitchen and storage rooms.

So now we are ready to start storing extra food, clothing and other things like this that we might use in the future.

---

Usually driving around China we often see many different sizes and shapes of vehicles that carry different kinds of goods and materials. Most of the time we look in amazement and wonder how the vehicles do not flipp over.

When the delivery driver came to drop the wood off that we were using for the closets and shelves we were not too surprised to see as soon as he got off his bike that the front wheel went shooting up…..well that was one way to make a quick delivery:)

---

We want to thank you for taking the time to read about our adventure here in Pingyu. If you would like to get more involved and get to know the children more, please visit our “Sponsor a Child” page where you will see photos of the remaining children who need sponsors.

Building Fund