New Year Activities!
This new year has been probably the busiest we have ever had. Michelle and I decided to have a big New Years party for our children on January 1st since we dont get to celebrate the Chinese New Year with most of our children. Typically the Chinese people celebrate their New Year according to the lunar calendar and it varies from year to year when they celebrate it; this year it’s January 22-24. Most of our children will go back to their villages to celebrate this holiday with their grandparents, or extended family for a short time. This way they stay connected to their families and their village.
We started the night off with shooting off fireworks. The kids were very excited and we heard a lot of “Oooohs” and “Ahhhhs” from them.
We can’t have fireworks without sparklers! Debbie (left) and Ellie (right) playing with their sparklers.
After the fireworks were over the older children came to Michelle and my(Ben) house to watch movies and play until the New Year came. We thought about having our five younger kindergarten aged boys stay up too, but they seemed pretty tired after the first movie so they went to bed.
The children love eating sunflower seeds and peanuts, so we laid out some sponges and let them kick back and enjoy a movie. While some of the boys wore costumes that we have collected over the years for our 3 sons; our girls put on some of Michelle’s hats, dresses and fake jewelery.
Last year we had a paper football tournament that the kids really enjoyed; so we decided to have another one this year. In the above picture Jaxin (our eldest son and on the left) in the second round of the tournament played against Sarah (right) and won his way to the 1st/2nd place final. Sarah was moved to the 3rd/4th place bracket.
For the 1st place prize Jaxin (left) and Gabe (right) went head to head with Gabe winning 5-4.
(left to right)Gabe beat Jaxin for 1st place, Hawk (our housemothers son)joined us for the party and won 3rd place against Sarah. Each child won a small prize.
The later the night got, the more the children were wondering how late we were going to allow them to stay up. We told our translator to tell them they could stay up until midnight. After he told them all the children yelled with such excitement we figured maybe something was misunderstood. When we asked what was said, he told us that he told them they could all stay the night. With such excitement we just went with it. One thing can be said for sure is that we all slept quiet warm and snug with over 21 people in our livingroom:)
When we opened our orphanage in March 2010, Nicky (bride) came to our gate asking if she could help us by teaching our children. She has been such a blessing and great friend since then. In December she told us that she was getting married to her boyfriend of three years. She asked if we would preform a Christian style wedding for them. Michelle and I agreed and started marriage counseling right away. January 5th Nicky and John were married.
January we have many birthdays to celebrate, so instead of having a bunch of birthday parties we have one big party. (left to right) Gene turned 7, Mark turned 10, Noah turned 7, Michelle turned…not allowed to say:), Sarah turned 10. If you would like to see more birthday pictures please click HERE.
This year we have had 4 people come to our gate asking for help with orphaned children, two 9 year old girls, one 5 year old boy and one 7 year old boy. When we go on child searches we are given a list of names from the government of orphans who are in need; the orphans are registered with the government. When we have people come to our gate asking for help, usually its for children who are not registered with the government; some don’t even have birth certificates. These children are the ones we truly want to find and help because they are usually extremely poor (which is the main reason they are not registered or have birth certificates) and are in desperate need of help. Our hopes are to welcome our new children during the summer time. The main two reasons for this is because the local schools won’t allow us to start a new student during the middle of the school year, and we have more time with the children to get them accustomed with their new life as a child of the Home of Hope before they start school.
When we search out children, its hard for us to say what is a “normal situation†because each child is special; some children need immediate action. Frank (Zhu Xue Feng) needed help right away so we brought him in this spring.
Franks father died of a disease October of last year; unfortunately we don’t know which disease it was from. His mother ran away soon after and has never been heard of since. Both his grandparents have passed too. His only living relative is a 44 year old aunt. (see picture below)
Most of our children that we help we feel we are not only helping them but their very old grandparents. Usually if we find a child who has a young relative who is more than capable to take of that child we encourage them to do so. This woman absolutely refused to listen to us and told us that she will not help him; she had her own sons to take care of. To prove to us that she meant what she said, she moved down south into another province leaving Frank in his fathers house.
We went to his village because we just could not believe that someone could do this to a child. So we started asking the neighbors if she truly abandoned him like that, they confirmed it and told us that the village had some Christians who were trying to give him clothes and food, but could hardly afford it because of how poor the village was. The aunt moved down south but came back to meet us because the government told her if she wanted our help she had to sign our contract. We begged her to take care of Frank but her heart was so cold that she told us that if we dont take him she was just going to leave him in the village.
We brought Frank into his dads home and asked him where he slept and did he live by himself. Our hearts were just crushed when he said yes. So we asked him if he would like to come live where he would be loved, fed and have a family with many sisters and brothers. Frank has big eyes and even a bigger smile and he just smiled and shook his head yes. Our hearts just melted, unfortunately he is very shy and its been very hard to capture that smile on camera, but we look forward to the many chances of trying to get it for you to see. He joined our family on January 7th:)
Currently with the cold winter weather we use small space heaters to heat our children’s bedrooms. When we build our new addition (see details below) we will install a boiler system. The smaller heaters cost a lot to run, but is the only way we can give heat to our children. Our typical electricity bill is around $285.00 per month. Last month our bill was over $650, and it was only the beginning of winter:) We estimate paying an additional $1500 at least for our electricity bill for this winter; any help with this bill would be a tremendous bless.
If you are interested in helping us with our heating need, please click HERE.
Thank you for spreading love, hope, and peace into so many wonderful lives.
Posted: January 18th, 2012 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none