PingYu Home of Hope

2nd Child Search

godard00 — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:22:15 +0000

In the beginning of June Michelle, David (our translator), a government leader and I (Ben) went on our 2nd child search. Our intentions were to bring in 5 girls and 2 boys so that we would have 8 girls and 8 boys. Before the search we prayed that God would guide us to which children HE wanted to join our family. So we were not surprised when each child that will be joining our family this summer were not on our original list. You might have read in our last couple posts, we were blessed with quite a surprise with bringing in Anna (Wang Yan), Jake (Wang Guo Bao) and Joey (Wang Bao Gui). We are very excited and blessed to have Anna, Jake and Joey in our family, but because Jake and Joey are so young we had to prepare an extra bedroom and hire 2 more housemothers for them. In August of this year we plan to bring in 6 additional children.

We are proud to introduce to you our newest family members to the Pingyu Home of Hope!

Thomas

Thomas (Chen Xin Yuan)

Thomas was born in 2005 (month and day unknown). In 2007 Thomas’ mother ran away, which caused his father to get so depressed that he committed suicide. Thomas lives with his 81 year old grandfather, his grandmother died a few years ago but we did not know exactly when. He also has a 8 year old sister, but she lives with their Aunt…apparently Thomas’ aunt wanted a daughter to help her clean and do other chores….his aunt did not want Thomas since she already had a son.
(left) Thomas and his grandfather in front of their apartment (above) Thomas and his grandfather in front of their bed.

When we arrived to see Thomas we were a little confused why the government leaders brought us to a school. Thomas’ house in the village was so poor and broken that the government told the local school to let them use an old abandoned classroom as a house. As we walked up to their house we noticed several things right away. First was that Thomas was outside playing by himself while his grandfather was inside laying in bed. His grandfather is 81 years old and half blind and deaf and so weak that he can hardly walk. The second thing we noticed was how dirty Thomas was; almost like he had not been cleaned in a very long time. The third thing that we noticed was that Thomas was not in school, later we found out that his grandfather was too poor to afford for him to go to school….even though they lived in the school he could not attend classes.

We also noticed that he was still wearing split bottom pants (clothing that most babies and toddlers wear until they are potty trained) which leads us to believe that he has not been potty trained. This is not really a big problem since none of our children ever used a western style toilet before coming here.

The Twins

Debbie and Eddy
Debbie and Eddy are 8 year old twins born on May 12 2002. They live with their 65 year old grandparents. Right after they were born their parents drove their work truck into some water and were both electrocuted because of a loose wire in the engine.

Debbie

Debbie (Guo Qian)
Debbie really impressed us how mature she was. Her eyes kept filling up with tears but she would not let herself cry. We could tell that she had tried taking her mothers place for her little brother Eddy. At one point while her grandmother was crying, Debbie walked over to her and used tissue paper to wipe the tears off her grandmothers face. This was one of the most touching things we have ever seen.

Eddy

Eddy (Guo Xin)
Eddy seemed like he depended on his older sister a lot; he followed her where ever she went. Even though he followed Debbie around he showed his bravery by returning our greeting with a “Hello” and shook our hands when we arrived….this was a bit surprising because most children are very scared of us when we arrive because they have never seen a Westerner before.
(left)Debbie and Eddy in front of their bed (right) Debbie and Eddy with their grandparents in front of their house

Lester

Lester (Sun Li Li)
Lester was born on February 12, 2004. His father and mother were in a car accident sometime last year that killed his father, and caused his mother to have extra mass on her brain, which as of right now she goes to the doctor 3 times a year for surgery for the next 3 years (each visit she is in hospital for 3 months). The doctors are unfortunately saying that they do not think the surgeries are successful and that they do not believe she will survive even to finish her treatments.
(left) Lester’s mother (wearing the hat) Lester, and his grandmother. (right) Lester’s mom showing us her scars.
Lester’s parents made enough money in the past to put him into a private school here in the city of Pingyu (he lived at the school which is very typical here in Pingyu), but since the accident all of their money has been used to pay off hospital bills. Unfortunately the surgeries are so expensive that Lester’s grandparents (both the mothers parents and fathers parents) are using everything they have to also help pay the bills. This past semester was Lester’s last semester in the city; he was going to have to go to school in the village.

Lester’s house sat out alone out in the middle of the families property, and it was right next to a deep lake (picture above). The grandmother was very concerned for Lester’s safety because if he went to the school in the village he would have to walk around the lake.
What also caught our attention was how poor his living conditions were, for example the bricks on his house were held together with mud.

(left) Part of their house (right) Lester on his bed.
As soon as we arrived Lester’s grandmother and mother just started crying and begging us for help. A lot of people come to our gate asking to put their child into our “school”; we tell them we are not a school we are a home. Lester’s family never once mentioned anything about his education, they were so concerned for his safety.

Danny

Danny (Yang Xi Fang)
Danny was born 6-27-2005. His father died of a blood disease and his mother ran away. His grandmother dead in 2006, same year as his father. He has been living with his 65 year old grandfather since.

(left) Danny and his grandfather in front of their bed (right) Danny and his grandfather in front of their house.
Danny’s grandfather was the first person to come to our gate asking for help. When we arrived at Danny’s house, Danny did not seem to be afraid of us at all; he even showed us his house while his grandfather stayed outside. When we asked him if he cooked food he told us no but he helped his grandfather. We asked him what his favorite food was and his reply was “Noodles”…which is very typical for this part of China.

Marie

Marie (Wang Zi Yue)
Marie was actually suppose to arrive in March with her older sister Emma (Wang Zi Yi) and her twin brother Gene (Wang Zi Ang), but the week before she arrived she broke her leg so bad that she still is laying in bed with her leg in a cast. She goes back to the doctor in August and if her leg is healed she will rejoin her sister and brother here(this is actually at the request of her grandparents). We wanted her to come here and let us take care of her leg so that she would not be separated from her siblings and so that her grandparents would not have the burden of paying the expensive hospital bills.

The need is great, there are many children that still need help, but we wait patiently for God to provide the proper funding, facility, staff and etc. We want to thank you for taking the time to read about our new children and want to thank you for your financial, prayer and penpal support. We have been very blessed that 12 of our 18 children have been sponsored. If you are interested in sponsoring one of our children please click Sponsor a Child which will give you better detail on how to sponsor a child. With your help, these 18 children are now in a safer environment, unfortunately during this child search we did not see 2 girls on our list because one drowned a few months earlier and the other had been kidnapped.

Say Cheese

Most of the time when we visit these children it is the first time they have ever seen a Westerner, which causes them to be very shy, frightened and most of the time not in the mood to smile. We try telling jokes and making funny faces at them to get them to smile…which sometimes makes them smile…and sometimes makes them cry.

In the above picture I (Ben) touched my nose with my tongue (it helps that I have a long tongue and big nose!) trying to get Danny to loosen up and smile. No one else could see me doing this but Danny. Instead of smiling he tried to see if he could touch his nose with his tongue too. His 70 year old aunt was standing behind me and not knowing that he was mimicking me started yelling at him…I quickly turned around and showed her that I was teaching him….she was quite embarrassed; I did not know a person could turn that red.

Thank you

Giving HOPE

godard00 — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:06:39 +0000

We wanted to thank you for you prayers for Anna (WangYan), Joey (Bao Gui) and Jake (Guo Bao) (Below Left to Right).
As we spoke on our earlier post, we went for a child search in June and met these three children. After seeing their troubled home, we realized that they must immediately come live at the Home of Hope.

We want to show you a few pictures of how Anna, Jake and Joey are doing, but we really want you to see how much HOPE can change a child in just a few short days. Before you look at these pictures, please see the pictures of the children the day we met them, click the link. 2nd CHILD SEARCH SURPRISE
When we meet children for the first time, we ask many questions and take many pictures, and we try to get the children to smile….we even offer candy as a reward if they do smile….but usually the children have never seen a westerner before and are quite scared, so getting them to smile is a little difficult.
You can see in the pictures below that Anna, Jake and Joey are starting to trust us more and are starting to really enjoy smiling.

MEDICAL EXAMS
As soon as Anna, Jake and Joey arrived we brought them to the hospital for a physical exam.
Jake (left) and Joey (right) getting their hearts checked out. Jake was not understanding what the doctors were doing so he cried almost the entire time we were there, and Anna sat by his side and held his hand (picture above left).

PROTECTION
We can see very easily that when the children were home Anna was the one who took care of Jake and Joey. When they first arrived, Jake and Joey would not go anywhere without holding Anna’s hand….she even had to stand in the bathroom with them or other wise the boys would just go in their pants.
Everyday we have tried to slowly take the responsibility of care giver away from Anna and slowly tried separating the boys from her. Each day we have tried getting Anna to play with the older children without keeping a watchful eye on her brothers. We are very glad to say that after 2 weeks, Jake and Joey are doing so well that we moved them out of the girls room and into the newly made kindergarten age and younger room. (picture below)
Jake and Joey are sharing a room with Gene (Wang Zi Ang) and Noah (Zhang Chen Liang). You can’t see them very well because they are being good little boys and sleeping!

MOVIE NIGHT
Every Saturday night we invite all the children into our home to watch a movie and play games. This past Saturday our friend video recorded the children playing outside and the children were able to watch themselves on TV, Jake and Joey absolutely loved it(picture below).

JUST FOR FUN
Joey is very smart and is a logic thinker. When he first arrived he had several accidents in his pants. One day we tried reasoning with him by telling him that every time he has an accident he has to take a shower….his reply was, I LIKE TAKING SHOWERS!!!:)

BELIEF
We wanted to share one more story about how much HOPE can change a child. When we first met Sarah (above) her grandparents told us that she was a naughty girl, did bad in school and really had nothing nice to say about Sarah at all. We really could see Sarah was not getting any love at all. From the day Sarah arrived Michelle and I have done nothing but pour out love for her and we have told her (as well as all the children) that we believe in them. When Sarah started school she failed her first few Chinese and Math tests, but we kept encouraging her and telling her that we believed in her. After one of their big tests, when Sarah and the other children arrived home from school, she came running to us showing us her test scores…they doubled! Each test score that she has brought home since has been higher each time….but more important than a test score is the confidence she has in her eyes…..she now believes in herself.

We truly want to thank you for your prayers and support that you have given to these children. Before coming to the Home of Hope these little boys and girls really had no HOPE of a future, and now thanks to your help….they have people who believe in them, which helps them to believe in themselves and greater and better things.
Thank you

2nd Child Search Surprise

godard00 — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:24:56 +0000

This past month we went on our 2nd child search. We were planning on bringing in 2 boys and 4 girls to finish filling up the 2 bedrooms that we are currently using.
On our last day of our child search we pretty much had figured out which children we were wanting to bring in this July. Little did we know what we were going to be seeing the last day…..

(Left to Right) Anna (Wang Yan), Jake (Wang Guo Bao), Joey (Wang Bao Gui)
We have seen over 50 children here in PingYu and none were in as desperate a situation as these children were in. Their main guardian and provider is an 80 year old woman who can barely stand on her own. She also is taking care of the childrens mother who is mentally handicapped.
Here the children are standing with their grandmother in front of their bed.

Both their parents are alive, but unfortunately both are mentally handicapped. Their mother is about the same age mentally as a 4-5 year old child. Their father is gone most of the day but when we he comes home he abuses the grandmother and the children. The twin boys even have scars on their backs. We truly never have seen this kind of situation before. It was so bad that we took the children home with us that day.

This was the first time the children ever rode inside a car…they were very excited and scared at the same time.

Anna

Anna (Wang Yan) is 6 years old (no confirmed birth date)and in the 1st grade. It seems she has been the main care taker of her younger brothers. She is very concerned about everything that happens to them, and if either boy can not see Anna they cry and yell out for her. We can see that she really enjoys playing with the other children but she always has one eye on her younger brothers.

Jake

Jake (Wang Guo Bao) is around 2-3 years old. He is very quiet and absolutely does not like being away from his older sister (Anna). He is the older twin and is very shy and timid.

Joey

Joey (Wang Bao Gui) is around 2-3 years old. He also is very attached to his older sister (Anna). He is very out going and very brave. On his way to get a blood test at the hospital, he told me several times that he was not going to cry like his older brother did….until they stuck him with a needle and lets just say his lungs work quite well.

We are very glad that these children are now apart of the home of hope. One issue that causes us a problem is the fact that 2-3 year old children must be watched at all times and the housemothers that we have can not do that. The younger children need a safer environment with safer toys, safer beds and etc. To give them that we need to hire an additional 2 more housemothers ($200.00 a month) plus prepare one of our extra rooms ($2500.00).

The room we need to remodel to get ready for the small children.

We will be updating you on their progress with living here with all the other children. We also will give you an update on the other children we will be bringing in this July. We looked at over 25 children this search and if we are able to hire the additional workers we may possibly be able to bring in 9 more children not including Anna, Jake and Joey.
Thank you for taking the time of being a part of our home. We really could not reach as many children without the help you give. We are truly thankful of the financial support you have given, donations of clothing and toys that we have received and for your prayers.

MAY DAYS

godard00 — Thu, 13 May 2010 23:59:27 +0000

SUMMER SHOE’S
Summer has arrived and so it was time to go get the children summer shoes. We found a local store that gives us a deal on shoes to help out the orphans in PingYu.
(left to right) Gene, Emma, Zoey, Philip, Jaxin, Tyler, Noah, Mark , Eli, Graham, Gabe and behind is Sarah
…the only problem is that the shoes are cheap…cheaply made that is…one day after buying the shoes 2 children broke their shoes:(
All the children showing off their shoe’s.

Hedge of Protection
Since our arrival here in PingYu several times throughout the day we have people standing at our fence looking in to see who we are and just what we are doing….especially when Michelle and my 3 boys are out playing. Unfortunately, the onlookers call the children over to talk with them and a few times to give them treats. More than 3 times people gave my sons a lighter to play with…we really dont believe to harm them…we believe it was the only thing on them that they could give…we say this because I gave back a lighter to one person telling him he can’t give a lighter to a child….so he returned with a toy. But one time someone gave my son a fire cracker and a lighter and before he knew that it was wrong, he lit it and the fire cracker hit our building. So we decided we needed to put something up to help keep people from handing things through the fence and we told ALL of the children DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING FROM STRANGERS.
(left)workers planting the trees (right) trees being delivered

Venturing Out
When we lived in Gongyi we lived in a 2 story building surround by 6-10 story buildings…not much to see…..but by being patient, God has blessed us with a beautiful surrounding. So on the weekends we try to take the children for walks around our neighborhood to enjoy the beauty. During our walk we stopped at a park to let the children play.

We walked along this river…the children really enjoyed it.

Open Wide
All of our children come from poor villages with no dentists and all of them lived with very old grandparents that did not have the modern knowledge of how to properly take care of teeth. So it was not a big surprise to us when we looked at the children’s teeth to see that half of them have cavities.
(left) Gabe (right) Emma

(left) Gene (right) Mark

Even though we can see their cavities, the dentist rule is, “If it does not hurt, why fix it?” Mark was the only one who had a toothache…it was an absessed tooth….but after a few trips back and forth to the dentist he is all better now.

MOTHERS DAY
For Mothers Day all the children made Mothers Day cards and gave them to Michelle and showered her with hugs and kisses. Then for lunch we took everyone out to a restaurant. The children enjoyed it a little too much….most of them had stomachaches from eating too much:)
Fitting 17 people around a table is a little bit cramped but at least you can really get “CLOSE” to your neighbor.

Fishing
Our 3 sons really enjoy the outdoors. Just about everyday they ask if we can go fishing. Since our move to China we have tried fishing several times..probably about 12 hours total…and have never caught a fish…actually never even had a nibble. We were beginning to think that Chinese fish do not like to eat worms but thankfully one of our housemothers husband told us where a good fishing hole was at.
Eli caught our first Chinese fish….it was a little bit small…the worm was bigger than the fish…talk about biting off more than you can chew!

We want to again really thank you for your support in our work here, but more importantly supporting the lives of these 9 wonderful children. If you would like to get more involved and get to know the children more, please visit the”Our Children” page.
Also as you can see we are still trying to raise money for our building. We still need to finish a few projects such as:

-Finishing the yard by hauling in some dirt, and planting grass seed Right now all the grounds are just covered with dirt, rocks and weeds. Total cost is $500.00

-We have been waiting to put a new roof over our dining hall until we can build a new safer and better entrance to the dining hall (Total for entrance is $750.00), but now that we are in the rainy season we have to redo the roof now…..its leaking pretty bad. Total for roof is $350.00.

Slowly Remodeling our apartment
-When I was younger I tried helping my dad and mom remodel our home…a few times I would be in the wrong place at the wrong time….but my dad would patiently ask me if HE was in my way….I never figured that out until we started remodeling our apartment.
I found it easier to put the children in a place where I could stay out of “their” way:)

-Please come back soon to hear more about our home and our new family here in China!

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One Busy Weekend!

godard00 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:04:17 +0000

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.

School first, then play!

godard00 — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 03:04:58 +0000

Since the beginning of the school semester, our children have had a little bit of a harder time in school because the schools in the villages are not as advanced as the schools in the city. For example, when our 3 first grade children (Graham, Sarah and Mark picture below) started school in the city, the first day their teacher told us that they did not know their multiplication table (1X1 through 9X9) and needed to catch up with everyone else. All three children came home sad and disappointed because they did not think they were capable of memorizing the table and would fall even farther behind in school.

(Left)Graham (Center) Sarah (Right) Mark

One of the main benefits of the children coming to the Home of Hope is for them to have a chance of obtaining a great education. Most of the children living in villages have a slim chance of even making through High School and an even slimmer chance of going to a University. We knew that some of the children were going to be behind in their schooling so we hired a tutor right away.

Nicky (above) works part time here tutoring the children.

We are glad to say that after one month of studying, all three children now can recite their multiplication table. They scored a 100% on a test that we gave them to make sure they were not just memorizing the numbers but knew how to multiply them too.

As much as we know how important it is for the children to have a good education, we also know that they need to be able to enjoy their childhood too!

Left-Michelle and Noah. Right- Ben and Gene

So far one of the best things we see that the children love is to have one on one time with Michelle (who they call Mom/ Mommy) or myself (Ben who they call Dad/ Daddy).
Having 12 children (our 3 boys included) the one on one time is great but hard to come by. Usually it starts off with it being 1 on 1……
Michelle and Emma having fun with flowers!

then what was 1 on 1 turns quickly to 1 on 2……
Sarah joining in on Emma and Michelle’s fun!

then what was 1 on 2 turns quickly to 1 on 3……
Graham joining in on Sarah, Emma and Michelle’s fun!

then what was once 1 on 1 turns to 12 ON 1
All 12 children on top of Ben (you can see my arm bottom middle of the pile)

Below are just some other pictures of the children during their play time:

Roasting Marshmallows
Left-Clockwise starting with Ben,Mark and Gene. Right-Clockwise starting bottom Mark, Gene, Jaxin, Eli, Ben and Emma

Hockey Time
We taught the children how to play hockey and they love it!

Left- starting from the left Gabe, Graham, Jaxin & David. Right- starting from left Jaxin, Philip and Graham taking a break.

Enjoying the Flowers
Left-Gene Right-Tyler

Playing on the Playground
Left-Eli Right Sarah

Having a Swinging good time
Zoey (left) and Mark (right)

It is an absolute joy being apart of these little boys and girls lives. We thank God every day that we can be here, its such a blessing. We also thank Him for your support, without it these children would not be as blessed as they are.
Thank you so very much for being apart of spreading hope and love to our children.

Time to Play

godard00 — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:40:31 +0000

As you might know, we operate solely through donations from people all around the world, and unfortunately we get zero financial help from the Chinese government. We truly can not thank you enough for all of your prayers and financial support, without your help we could not be here spreading the love, hope and joy to all these children.

This week our children were blessed with 2 big donations, and we wanted to share their joy with you.
First surprise for our children was getting a basketball hoop and ping pong table installed, which just so happens to be 2 of the most popular sports played here.

David watching the boys shoot some hoops.

(Left)-Jaxin, Eli, Tyler and Philip. (Right)-Sarah and Gabe(front) and Emma (back)

The second surprise was having a playground delivered and installed.

All of the equipment arrived on one little delivery truck.

After the equipment arrived, the playground company sent one man to put it together, so David (our translator) and I (Ben) were happy to get out of the office and give him a hand. Some of the smaller children saw the fun we were having spreading out all the different pieces that they decided to help as well.

Kindergarten children and our boys

After all the pieces were spread out and accounted for, the construction process started….without any directions, just a hand scribbling on paper to show what the playground should look like:)

Right-David and I getting the holes ready to anchor the legs in concrete

IS IT DONE YET?
Noah, Jaxin, Zoey, Tyler, Eli and Gene(below left to right) waiting patiently to play on the new playground

Usually as soon as the children arrive back from school they must do their homework, but when the primary school children came home, they were so surprised to see the play ground that we just had to let them all play on it!

Zoey (left) and Noah (right)

Jaxin(left) and Gene (right)

Philip(left) and Tyler(right)

Graham(left) and Emma(right)

Eli(left) and Gabe(right)

Sarah(left) and Mark(right)

Family Photo

We want to again really thank you for your support in our work here, but more importantly supporting the lives of these wonderful 9 children. 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.

First Day of School!!!

godard00 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:38:47 +0000

Soon after the children arrived we brought them to a near by public grade school to enroll them for the last semester of the year. Unfortunately most of the children are a little behind the other students because here in the city they have better teachers than in the villages so they are able to teach the children more. For example, none of our first graders were taught multiplication and the other 1st graders already know up to 9×9. So we are hard at work trying to help them catch up.

PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN
(Left to Right) Our housemother, Mark, Emma, Sarah, Gabe, Graham, Philip

1st GRADERS
(Left)Graham (Center) Sarah (Right) Mark

2nd GRADERS
(Left) Gabe (Right) Emma

3rd GRADER
Philip

The school that the primary aged children attend has a kindergarten and primary school, unfortunately the kindergarten had too many students so we had to find another kindergarten for our children to go to. The good thing about finding a different kindergarten is that the one we found is the best in our city.

(left to right) Zoey, Gene, Noah and the housemother that walks them to school

Michelle home schools our three boys Jaxin, Eli and Tyler (above left to right) during the day while the other children are gone at school. We have always home schooled them, and by doing so we have never had that anxious feeling we got when dropping the other children off at school on their first day. Wondering if they were going to make friends, or do well in class. The palms of my (Ben) hands were actually sweaty and my stomach felt like it was up in my throat.

OFF TO SCHOOL

Each day one of the housemothers walks the primary school children to school (above left), while the other housemother walks the kindergarten children to school(above right). Each group takes about 10 minutes to walk to school.

JUST FOR FUN
Most Chinese students have extremely tough school schedules. By primary school these children must make good enough grades to get into a good middle school, which helps them get into a good high school which helps them get into a good university. If they dont get into a good middle school or high school, their chances of getting into any university are slim.
When we were trying to get the children to smile for a picture, Graham was in the middle of memorizing his multiplication table. After taking this picture we decided maybe he needed a break:)

We want to thank you very much for helping our dream come true, but more importantly helping all of the children here to have a chance of a normal Chinese life. 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.

The Arrival of our Children!!!!!

godard00 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:16:07 +0000

On March 1st we were able to bring all of the children into the PingYu Home of hope. After our delay of finding housemothers who WANTED to work here, we were very excited to call the Civil Affairs to tell them that we were ready for the children to arrive!

The children started arriving early on the March 1st. While I (Ben) met with the legal guardians to sign contracts with them, Michelle had the fun job of welcoming in our children and entertaining them.

(left)Sarah and Michelle coloring a picture (right)Mark coloring a picture

Unfortunately, Marie broke her leg just a few days before our opening so she won’t be joining us until probably this summer. This is very heart breaking for us but her grandfather wanted to keep her at home to make sure her leg healed.

Below are several pictures of our first day, again like the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

All the children excited about getting their new stuffed animals or dolls to sleep with

(left) Graham with his dog (right) Zoey with her doll

The children trying out their new desks

Gabe (left) Emma (right) with their new desks

Mark (left) and Noah (right) trying out their new beds

Sarah (left) and Emma (right) checking out their new bathroom.

Gene getting a hair cut before starting school

(left) Noah watching Michelle cut Tyler’s hair (right) Michelle cutting Eli’s hair

Our first meal as a family!

JUST FOR FUN!!!!!
When the children arrived and started looking in their bedrooms, none of them had ever seen….or used a western style toilet. When we showed them how to use it and “Flush it” they were quite amazed how the water went down the toilet. You can see the big smile on Sarah’s face in the picture below as she watches the water:)

Last minute work before the children arrive!

godard00 — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:56:38 +0000

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.

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