5Th Annual Summer Camp
This years summer camp was held in Gongyi, where the first Home of Hope orphanage is located. Each year we try to host the summer camp at a different location, either at the Gongyi Home of Hope, the Xuzhou Home of Hope (last years camp was held there), and hopefully when we raise enough money for our new addition we will be able to host the camp here in Pingyu. This gives the children at each home a chance to travel to a different city and also to show their city to all of their brothers and sisters!!
This year we had just over 60 children who were all primary school and middle school age attend the camp. Each year we split the children into 3 teams for a friendly competition and ask the high school aged kids and college age kids to help us by being team captains and counselors. (Above left to right) Jenny, Vincent, Holly, Wayne, Shirley, Luke, Matthew, Gail and Tony (all from the Gongyi Home of Hope).
The camp was for 3 days, not including the 2 travel days it took our Home of Hope and the Xuzhou Home of Hope to get to and from the Gongyi Home of Hope.
The first day is always a little boring for the younger children because we are separating everyone into teams, and passing out our shirts, which we would like to thank The Shirt Shack, Inc. for donating all of our shirts! While the children were being separated into teams and trying to come up with designs and names for their teams, Michelle and Hollie (Ben’s older sister who is visiting for the summer) painted some of the children’s faces.
To give the children an idea what they could get painted, Michelle and Hollie painted all of our children’s faces a few days before the camp. Our children loved being able to point out to everyone at the camp their picture.
We told the story about how when David was fighting Goliath he had to go to the river and find 5 smooth ping pong balls:) He then took one and with his sling shot he defeated Goliath.
(Don’t try this without adult supervision)
(no one was harmed during this production)We split the children into 2 groups, primary school aged children and middle school aged children. While the middle school aged children tried using the sling shot to throw the ping pong the farthest distance, we had the primary school children do a “ping Pong” egg hunt representing David looking for his 5 stones. (See picture below)
We explained to the children how King David had such joy that he was always singing or dancing……so they would also be dancing, which was quite joyous to watch.
We tied an empty Kleenex box on the children’s waste and filled it with 10 ping pong balls. They had 30 seconds to dance the balls out of the box, for each ball out they earned 10 points for their team!
The toughest part of the camp is for all 3 administrators who have to judge each teams shirt and flag design. All of the children worked so hard on designing their shirts and flags. Below the children waiting to be judged.
The second day was the start of our Water day. Pretty much the goal of this day was to get as wet as possible and stay that way! We started off with a water balloon toss.
The children began one arm length away from each other and after each successful catch without the balloon popping, they took one step away from each other. Little did they know that the award for winning was getting a BIG water balloon popped over their heads!
James and Martin (both from the Xuzhou Home of Hope) won by throwing the balloon and catching it over 30 feet apart from each other.
After the balloon toss we played a game that my lovely wife Michelle must have come up with, “How wet can you get the administrator”; who happen to be Bob Sayre (administrator to the Xuzhou Home of Hope), Nathan Bell (administrator to the Gongyi Home of Hope), and I, Ben Godard (administrator to the Pingyu Home of Hope)(pictured below left to right). The children lined up with their teams, and had 1 minute to pass as many water balloons as they could done the line to their captains, who popped the balloon over the administrators head.
The children must have enjoyed this because the first go around ended in a tie. So for the tie breaker…..they did it again. Team Fire won with successfully popping 15 balloons over my (Ben) head…and the balloon had to be popped over the head, a few hit my knee and shoulder which did not count.
Next we played a game that the point of the game was to fill up a cup with water then run to a fill a bucket about 30 feet away.
And to keep up with our goal (“To get as wet as possible and stay that way!”), the cup has several holes in it:)
Eli, our middle son (pictures above left), chases after Gabe (pictured above middle) and Sarah (pictured above right)
Mark (left) and Gene (right) race to dump their cup!
Above Holly, Shirley and Gail (left to right) hold the bucket down while Vincent (left) and Timothy (right) dump their cups.
The race was very close. The grass started getting very wet around the buckets and several children ran up to the bucket so fast that they could not stop because it was so slick; which ended up with them on the ground and their team bucket being kicked over. The funny thing was that it happened to all three teams several times. Team FIRE came out with the win, and their reward……a bucket of water on each of the captains head (Vincent and Jenny)
Jaxin, our eldest son, jumped right in for his apple!
Gail helped hold Debbie’s apple still so she could grab it.
We finished the day by going to the swimming pool. We started going swimming 2 years ago and the children absolutely loved it, so we have tried to plan on going each year. What a great way to cool off and have a great time too!
The 3rd and last day of the camp was all about unity. The first 2 days the children were rekindling friendships and meeting new friends. The 3rd day was all about working together as a team.
The children started the day off by gathering together and going over a list of questions to ask each of the members in their team. They were later given a test on how much they knew about each member.
The craft for the day was decorating an envelope that the children hung on the wall for other children to put a note inside it.
This was very cool to see the excitement of the children both writing messages and receiving them.
Sticking with the Unity theme we played lots of team games. The first game we played was having the children sit in line and pass a dodge ball down the line…without using their hands or letting it hit the ground
Team FIRE was quite excited when they won, it was not an easy feat.
We took a break for a snack, which again we have done each year and each year the children ask us to do the following year. The point of this snack is for 2 children to make and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich…..but one child makes the sandwich for the other without being able to see and feeds it to them; this involves a lot of team work:)
The afternoon we held a ping pong and basketball tournament. The winners of the ping pong tournament (2 person teams) won a new ping pong paddle for each player, and the winners of the basketball tournament won a new basketball for each player. It just so happened that Matthew (below left) and Tony (below right) won both tournaments. Along with winning the paddles and basketballs they also earned points for their team. Each year the point difference between the teams are very close. When Matthew and Tony won both tournaments, they did not realize that they also earned enough points to push their team (POP) into first place!
While the older children were competing in the ping pong and basketball tournaments, Michelle set up a ring toss for the younger children. We had small toys and nick knacks from America for the children to win.
At the end of the 3rd day after all of the activities were finished and all the points tallied for each team. We had a huge feast that included hotdogs, chips, cakes, assorted fruit and veggies, and a nice cold drink.
The younger children work their way down the buffet table while the older children passed out the food.
Once the children got their food they settled down to watch a talent show that some of the children prepared.
Some of the Gongyi kindergarten aged children prepared a few songs (left to right) Abby, Caleb, Grace (behind Caleb), Ron and Mary
Then Caleb and Ron did a Kung Fu show that they learned at school
All of our children prepared a song, “This Little Light of Mine”. They practiced it for 2 weeks singing it both in English and Chinese. One night during one of the rehearsals we brought them into our house to explain to them the meaning of the song. We turned off all of the lights then lit a candle and passed it down the line showing how easy it is to spread the joy and hope they have to the other children.
After everyone was done eating we gave out the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards. This year they received gold, silver and bronze metals!
We thank you for your patience with giving us time to complete this page and sorry for the length of it. Our children had such a great time and look forward to our summer camp all year; we just wanted to make sure you were able to experience some of their joy.
Thank you
Posted: August 9th, 2011 under Uncategorized.
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