PingYu Home of Hope

Like you might have read in past posts, most of our children are behind the other children in school because the schools in the villages are not as good as the city schools. We have also mentioned before how hard and strenuous education is pushed on the children here, so during the weekends our children have a mixture of study and play time; which they just absolutely love to play on our new playground.
Our children with a couple of their friends enjoying the playground

This past weekend was filled with many different activities, which started off with the children’s families coming to visit Saturday morning and then later that afternoon all the children had to go back to school for a big test. Then Sunday morning the Civil Affair government leaders came for our Grand Opening (you can read more about this below) and as soon as they left we were blessed with around 30 volunteers that came to play (you can read more about their visit below).
We finished the weekend with spreading sand all around the playground to make it safer and more enjoyable for the children.

---

The “Official Grand Opening”
Even though all of our children arrived here on March 1st of this year, we never had an Official Grand Opening with all of the government leaders. We wanted to wait for the children to become more adjusted to us and their new home before our Grand Opening.
(Above) All of the children and Michelle waiting to welcome in the government leaders.
From left to far right: Gene, Zoey,Mark,Emma, Graham,Philip, Jaxin, Gabe, Sarah,Eli,Tyler & Noah

All the children gave each visitor a flower…as you can see Noah doing in the picture above.

China has many different traditions and customs, and we try our best to follow most of them….even if its eating a goat hoof….which we did during our child search back in August of 09, but we had them eat it first to make sure they were not playing a joke on us.
Thankfully a Grand Opening did not involve eating anything strange. We did have to do some traditional things, for instance:

We shot off a roll of fireworks.

Some friends of ours bought us a beautiful picture which represented them blessing us and our work here.

We had a sign made showing everyone who we are.
(Right)Ben and the Leader of the Civil Affair in PingYu unveiling the sign.

We finished our Grand Opening with eating a cake…..unfortunately the bakery did not know how to write English very well, and the cake read Home of Hofe (HOPE):) but it still tasted pretty good.(below left children getting ready to eat the cake!)

---

The Volunteer Group
As soon as the Civil Affairs leaders left we had about 30 or more people line up at our gate wanting to play with the children and give them gifts. It was kind of cute, because the children wanted to line up again and welcome them in too.

(Left) Sarah, Gene, Emma & Zoey (left to right) blowing bubbles. (Right)Our children and some of the visitors playing a game.

Before the group left they asked if they could help do anything else….so we took up there offer and asked them to return to help spread sand around the playground.
Our son Jaxin and some of the volunteers who helped spread the sand.

---

Thank you for taking the time to read about our lives here in China. If you would like to get more involved and get to know the children more, please visit the”Our Children” page.