The Hope Foster Home (click here)  CHINA

Update June 2004

Dear Friends and Supporters,

We have much to report this month so I will try to be brief. Despite all the activity Rob and I manage to stay, for the most part, sane and peaceful. Do write to us if you want more details on any part of this report. As always, we love to hear from you.

HFH Special Care Unit, Henan province. Our greatest and most exciting “gift” this month has been the permission to set up a unit to care for all the dying children in an orphanage in this province.  Hope Foster Home will be able to manage this unit entirely independently including having a foreign volunteer live on-site. The babies we will be caring for are either very premature or have severe birth defects which are unlikely to be compatible with prolonged life. This will be a very difficult and sensitive project and we ask for your prayers for the success of this special Unit. Our hope will be," To comfort always, to relieve often and to save sometimes”.

Foster Home Shunyi, Beijing:

Construction: The construction work around the Shunyi Home continues at a rapid pace. We are ready to paint in the new extension and when we moved the dining room, laundry etc over, renovations will start, to create 3 new bedrooms, a bathroom and a playroom for more babies.

The babies:  We have 3 new babies. This brings our total to 18 babies. We actually only have room for 12 so we are “bursting at the seams” till our renovations are ready. Our new Outreach Program (see below) should help in the mean time. Hayley is scheduled for heart surgery on August 10^th in New York. Please pray for her as she goes through this difficult time. Please pray too for the medical staff and all the care-givers who will tend to her. We appreciate the gift of free travel with Northwest Airlines. This is not the first time they have generously offered their assistance. The twins Carly and Sydney have had their cleft lips repaired and they look beautiful. The US surgeons are due to return in 6 months to repair their palates. We thank Love Without Boundaries who made this possible. Jesher, 2 years old, born with a severe spinal deformity will be treated by a visiting American neurosurgeon in October and also by a US (Stanford) orthopaedic surgeon possibly in July. This will be the start of many surgeries for this little boy as he grows. His deformities are numerous and difficult to fix but as usual we take one little step at a time. All the other kids are doing very well.

Volunteers; Volunteers from Peak Pacific planted trees and shrubs and brought us a financial gift as well.  Christina, our nurse has returned to the US for a short vacation and will be back to serve with us for another year. We welcome Melissa M, Diana V, Rachel P. and Liz as a short term volunteers. Diana went with the twins to Guangdong province and helped care for them during their surgery and now she, Liz and Melissa are helping with preschool. We also have Aidan MC from Canada with us for about a month. We also welcomed a volunteer group from Singapore who helped with many of our needs around the home. They were our first “Yurt Dwellers” and had a positive experience in our unusual form of accommodation.  More groups will be here over the Summer and Fall.

Shunyi Outreach Foster Care Program  We have several prospective families who live close to us who would like to foster some of our children. The plan is to foster out healthy children who are waiting for surgery. This will help us to care for more kids in need of intensive care and most importantly give the healthier ones a “proper“  home. We will continue to provide for all their medical needs and will also supply cribs, clothes, formula, vitamins etc These families will be trained and monitored regularly and the children will receive immunizations and health checks. We are in the process of checking out the families and will be placing 15 children with them as soon as possible. This project is funded by Love Without Boundaries

Foster Home Sai Qi, Fujian Province

Some of our children in Sai Qi have been sponsored. There are 28 children in this Home. Marsha, our Project coordinator will visit them in late July and we will have an update then for donors to this project

Other Projects: ( on behalf of Love Without Boundaries)

Dingyuan (Anhui Province) Joyce and Marsha traveled to Dingyuan and placed 10 children in foster homes. We trained the foster parents, brought clothes, medicines, toys and funds to the families. They will be monitored on a regular basis and their needs will be addressed as they arise.

Luoyang ( Henan Province) Rob and Marsha travelled to Luoyang and are doing several smaller projects that would benefit the children still living in the orphanage there.

Our thanks;

Special thanks to Intercontinental-Asia Pacific group in association with Kingsway Travel, who donated 10 bicycles to us.

Thanks to all those who donated medical supplies, clothes, pre-school supplies and double strollers.

A very special thank you to Peggy Hubbard for the beautiful blankets and toys for the babies (see attached photo)

Our needs;

Our most urgent need is finances to fund our Special Care Unit for the dying children. Please contact us for details of costs if you feel directed to help this project.  The costs will not be high and the rewards great if we are able to comfort all and hopefully save many little lives.

We will need volunteers who are willing to help us set up and manage this unit. Please contact us if you have some building/medical expertise. We are looking for people who will be willing to live on-site short-term, in Henan province.

Thank you for your ongoing support and prayers for all that we do.

Much love and many blessings to you all.

Rob and Joyce.