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The Hope Foster Home - China |
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Update October 2004 Previous Updates (May) (June) (July) (Aug) (Sept)
Dear Friends and Supporters, This month has been an extremely busy one. Christina, Rob and I are hanging in there by the skin of our teeth. We were just thinking, this year to date we have: 1) expanded our Shunyi home to take in 26 kids 2) employed more than 20 new staff members 3) facilitated surgeries for 15 children 4) created an Outreach Foster program to our local village 5) begun work on our Special Care Unit in Henan province 6) continued support of the 28 children in Fujian province 7) seen 6 of our kids adopted 8) expanded our pre-school room 9) built and moved into our personal home 10) erected 3 Mongolian Yurts and housed several teams of volunteers. We are all hoping that the pace will now slow down a little. Neurosurgeries in Changchun: We are disappointed that one of our children, Jesher, was not was operated on but the surgeons decided that his spinal deformities were too complicated to do here without the right equipment. We will keep trying to get him a passport and see if any other doors will open for him. The surgeries for the other children went well and they are now home. Teresa’s wound was infected and she was admitted to Beijing United Family hospital and started on high dose intravenous antibiotics. So far she is stable. When we asked for donations of funds for the surgeries for our six children, we were so abundantly blessed by so many of you. With the excess funds, which we offered to The Shepherd’s Crook ministries, we were able to cover the costs of 3 more children, Lydia Zhao Si Ling and Abigail Zhao Si Na from Hohot, Mongolia and Adam Fu Wen Bo from Jiaozuo, Henan province. Without these funds, these kids would not been able to have surgery. Thank you for giving them new life. You can see pictures of the children and the surgeries on line by logging on to http://www.theshepherdscrook.org/majiale/children.html Foster Home Shunyi, Beijing The babies: This month we took in another preemie, Fu Xiao Meng. ( Henan province) She weighs only 2.2 kg but is feeding well. Shi Dong Sheng ( Xin Jiang province) who is very malnourished and also has Down’s syndrome and Kui Xin Dong (also from Xinjiang) is in hospital; awaiting heart surgery. Dang Kang (from Shanxi province) was a conjoined twin. He had successful surgery to remove his non-viable twin and he is doing well. We thank Beijing United Family hospital for covering the cost of the surgery and also Dr Yih who did the surgery. Hayley is on a flight home from the US as I write. Charmaine has been adopted by a family in Holland, so she,the twins, and Adam will be leaving us soon. Rebekah ( Exposed bladder) will have surgery in Sydney, Australia on November 3rd. She and I will leave Beijing on Oct 23rd. Volunteers. Marsha P and her team of 4 were with us and helped greatly with all that was going on. Lorrie O and her daughter were with us for a few days and were very helpful with the babies who just had surgery. Jade L. and her group of young friends were very helpful sorting donations in our storeroom. Shunyi Outreach Foster Program. As most of our new babies are in need of intensive care, we are not yet able to put any more babies out this month but we have had several new families apply and they have met our criteria and had medical clearance and will be ready to receive a baby anytime. We will be able to meet our goal of 10 babies out in our village by the end of this year Foster Home Sai Qi Fujian Province: Marsha, our project coordinator visited Sai Qi recently and brought back their needs and updates on the children. The individual children’s sponsors will be receiving the updates soon. There are some problems with the new site they want to purchase and they have asked for help from our lawyers. HFH Special Care Unit , Henan Province: Renovation work has begun in this Unit. Rob has been traveling there frequently to supervise the progress. Everything is going smoothly. Our Needs: We would like to express our gratitude to Tami Fagerland who will handle our Baby Sponsorship program from the beginning of November. 2004. If you are interested in sponsoring and naming a baby, please contact her at tami@hopefosterhome.com We have many new babies whom you could sponsor if you wish to help in this way. For those of you who are already sponsoring our children, Tami will be in touch with you when necessary to send you updates on your children etc. Please feel free to contact her if you have any concerns. Our new Special Care Unit has 8 more rooms up for sponsorship (and naming too). Please contact us at joyce@hopefosterhome.com or look on our website for details, if this interests you. Our Thanks; Our special thanks and heartiest congratulations to May Cheng from GE. May won an award, the first ever won by a GE employee in Asia, for her dedicated volunteer work which has benefit so many organizations and underprivileged individuals in China. May chose to donate her award to Hope Foster Home and Rob and I were invited, with May, to a special ceremony in Shanghai to receive this. We thank the BICF for sponsoring the medical treatment room in our Special care unit. We thank all of you who have responded to our need for winter clothes and toys for the pre-school. We continue to receive medical supplies from many of you and we are very grateful. This month, we have been able to be a blessing to another Foster Home in Gongyi, Henan province called the House of Hope (unrelated to Hope Foster Home) by supplying some of their medical needs so we would like you all to know that nothing you send us is wasted. It all goes to children in need and it is wonderful for us to be able pass your abundant blessings on to others. God’s special blessings on you all. Robin and Joyce. “What value has compassion that does not take its object in its arms?” Antoine De Saint-Exupery.
Dr. Joyce Hill MBBS, FRACGP
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