4th Annual Summer Camp!!!!
The 4th annual summer camp was held in Xuzhou (2nd HOH started 5years ago) this year. When we first thought of the idea of hosting a summer camp, our thought was to be able to travel to a different Home of Hope location each year. This way all the children at the Home of Hope‘s are able to take a turn traveling and take a turn showing their home to all of their brothers and sisters. The first 3 years we held the camp in Gongyi (1st Home of Hope started 10 years ago).
71 children which includes 14 college and high school students that were a very big help being camp councilors and team captains.
Xuzhou is a very big and beautiful city with many different activities to do. When all 3 HOH administrators decided that the camp would be in Xuzhou we also planned that each day we would bring the children outside to do some kind of activity, which the children really enjoyed.
The 1st day both the Gongyi HOH and our HOH left very early in the morning to travel to Xuzhou. Gongyi rented a bus and thankfully we were able to drive in our van.
Front (left to right) Yu Ling (housemother) Anna, Zoey, Sarah and Emma. Back seat left to right Gabe, Mark, Graham (not in this pic) and Philip.
After everyone arrived and settled in we gathered together and separated all the children into 3 teams.
This years team names were SUN, BIG and WOW. 
(left to right) John, Matthew and Vincent (All from GongYi) were this years team captains!
Once the teams were made, we passed out team flags and T shirts. We really want to take this time to thank Eddie and Sheralin Greene from Harlan Kentucky who own and operate the Shirt Shack company. They have donated our wonderful camp shirts for the past 3 years.
Zak (GHOH) showing his team colors
The camp was filled with many different activities such as…
Bob Sayre (Xuzhou HOH admin.) teaching an English class to all the children.
(Top left to right) Graham (PHOH) and Sarah (PHOH). (Middle left to right)Tony(GHOH), Gabe (PHOH), Andrew(XHOH), Aaron(XHOH). (Bottom) Calvin (GHOH).
(Left front to back) Zoey (PHOH), Emma (PHOH), Vincent (GHOH). (Middle front to back) Anna (PHOH), Grace (XHOH), John (GHOH). (Right front to back) Autumn (GHOH), Rachel (XHOH) and Matthew (GHOH).The object of this game is the person in the middle is to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and feed it to her partner in front without seeing what she is doing, hence the captains covering their eyes. The person in the front can not use their hands but can tell her partner instructions how to make it. First 2 done eating is the winner!
At the end of each camp we ask all of the children which activity they liked the most, and their reply is always “WATER DAY”!!!
The water day is full of many different activities such as……
Each time the children successfully pass the balloon to their partner they must take a step backwards
Adam (GHOH) and James (XHOH) tied with Tony (GHOH) and Timothy (XHOH). Each team reached from basketball post to basketball post..quite amazing
If you did not sit on a chair you not only were out of the game but the fun thing about this game was you got a balloon popped over your head.
Poor Calvin (GHOH) not only lost his seat but had several water balloons popped over his head by his older brothers John (GHOH) and Jim (GHOH) and his older sister Gail (GHOH), but he is a good sport and enjoyed the cool down.
We could not have a water day with out bobbing for apples.
Eli (our middle son) was the the first one to grab an apple.
The past 3 years the children have really enjoyed swimming in the small pool at the Gongyi HOH, we did not want to let anyone down so we took the kids out swimming….all 71 of them…our hearts felt much better once this activity was over:)
We did make sure every younger child had some kind of float…..Jaxin (our eldest son) was teaching us how to properly use the floats….all of them:)
This park is full of many differnet obstacles as you can see below…..
Samuel (XHOH) front middle and Andrew (XHOH) back middle getting ready to swing to the next post
Michelle joining the fun
Tyler and I (Ben) trying to get across the water without getting wet.
(center)Luke (GHOH) trying to keep his balance while Linda (GHOH) takes the safer route walking on a more sturdy cable. (Top left)
Once you climb the bridge like Luke, or the cable like Linda, you get a fun swing down like Eli (our middle son) is doing.
We could not be at an obstacle park without having a race. John (GHOH) on the right races ahead of Matthew (GHOH) on the left.
At the end of each camp we always have a big celebration filled with:
All the high school and college children helped pass out hot dogs, chips, cookies, a few different vegetables, fruit, candy and soda.
All the Pingyu children along with our 3 boys sang a song.
We thank you for taking the time to look through all these wonderful pictures. We really wanted to show you how great of a time the children had and hope you can see why all three Home of Hopes look forward to this camp each year.
Thank you
Here are some links to our past summer camps. It was pretty neat to look through these pictures to see how much our children have grown. You can also see that there are some games and activities that we noticed the children enjoyed so much that we played them each year. Some children did not participate in every camp because they were either too young or because some of the older children having to go back to school.2007 Summer Camp, 2008 Summer Camp, 2009 Summer Camp.
Thank you!
Posted: September 6th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
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