Just look at that sky! |
Dear All,
Being true Brits, let us begin by talking about the weather!
Greetings from a very cold but surprisingly clear Beijing.
The temperature has dropped, but the wind has been a
blowing, taking with it the usual smog and pollution over
Beijing and the surrounding area. It has been great to see
that there is still a sky up there.
It certainly worked to our advantage when a group of teenagers came to
volunteer with us from Queen Mary’s High School, the school
that I used to work for. Our trip to the Great Wall was on
one of the clearest days we remember. Having the group here
was a great way to end the volunteering group’s season.
We have to say a big thank you to QM for what they did while
they were here, they worked so hard with the children and
embraced China, its culture, traffic and food so well. We
had an awesome time with you guys. |
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Life at the home.
Updates on the children:
Back in June, and over the last few updates we have been
asking you to pray for the children here in terms of their
adoption. Well, prayers have been answered! After Robin’s
comment about needing these kids to be adopted soon, we have
since found out that there are
11 of our
children who are in the process of being adopted and 3 more
who are on lists, waiting to be selected. This is
incredible!!!! Hopefully these adoptions will take place
over the next 6 months as these children join their
families. From the children we asked you to specifically
pray for, Toby has a family and Howard has a family waiting
to be approved. Dang Guo Kun’s family were delayed and he
will hopefully be able to join them later this month, and we
still await news of Guo Fu (Zach).
We usually have a little notice as to when the children will
be leaving us and so we have been shocked in the last month
to receive just 48 hours notice in two cases of adoption.
Xiao Meng (Gabriella Beth) and Wen Xing (William) were both
returned to the orphanage they came from to await their
families. Unfortunately there was a complication in Wen
Xing’s adoption and it was not completed but Gabriella has
joined her family. Even though we know that the ultimate
hope for these children is to see them adopted, it is sad to
say goodbye. Gabriella had just started preschool mid
September and I know she is going to be a great addition to
her family. William is now back with us and we are hoping
that he will be adopted by another family soon. Please pray
for all 11 who are being adopted as the process is long and
there are many official procedures that each family must go
through. And please particularly pray for Jin Li Xi (Aidan
Noelle). Jian Hong (Micah) and Wen Dong (Jamie), who are
those whose details are on waiting lists.
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Gabriella |
With
all these adoptions there will also be huge changes in the preschool
as most of them are in my class!
Ji Bei |
I know we have talked a lot about a little girl called Ji
Bei in our previous updates and we heard from her mum
recently that she has undergone further heart surgery and
besides a complication that will require minor surgery, she
is doing well. It is wonderful to be able to see how she is
growing and get a glimpse at how these children’s lives are
transformed through adoption.
We also talked in our last update about Aurora, a little
girl who went to Singapore for heart surgery. Well, she had
a tough time post operatively, but recovered well, and even
had a TV documentary made about her! She arrived back today,
and took her place as princess of the Pooh Bear room without
problem. She is also one of the children that have been
adopted and her waiting mum has been following her
development.
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Lastly for the updates on the children, it is truly with sadness
that we have to report that Joey has an incurable type of tumour and
his prognosis is that he has about a year to live at most. We are
all deeply grieved by this news and although none of us can
understand why we know that we can make sure that he receives the
love, comfort and care that he needs. He will move to the Luoyang
unit next week. Please pray for him.
More news:
There is often a cry of “no room for more babies!” that rises up in
Hope Foster Home, but we know that where there is a will
(particularly God’s will) there is a way. And so we now have an
addition of 9 new beds to the foster home. It was felt that the
isolation room was so rarely used that it could be put to better use
and so Joyce has opened a new unit, in association with Love Without
Boundaries, to care for children pre and post operatively until they
are healthy enough to return to their orphanages. Love Without
Boundaries is an American organisation that, among other things,
arranges and pays for many surgeries within China and the unit will
act as a much needed location for these children as they regain
their health and strength. As I have mentioned, the idea is that
once the children from this unit are healthy enough they will return
to their orphanage. However, already there are feelings that we
can’t bring ourselves to do that and so extending our outreach
foster family program seems to be an option. Watch this space…
Incidentally, and perhaps ironically, as soon as the isolation room
had been converted and children were put into the room, we had an
outbreak of chickenpox!
Proud Kindergarten teacher moment
J
The
last few weeks have been incredible for me with the children as I
have seen the children develop in so many ways. Most of them can now
distinguish between circles, triangles and squares and tell you in
English what they are, they can sing the tune and a lot of the words
to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and they have finally learned more
animals in the “Old McDonald” song than cow – it used to drive me
crazy that every verse would be moo moo here. But my star student
has to be Zachary (Guo Fu). His favourite activity at the moment is
using the etch-a-sketch and below are some of the things that he has
achieved in the last two weeks – all his own work – I am so proud of
him!
Pastures New
We
have now been in China for over a year and in that time we have
become involved in a number of areas outside of Hope. The summer
provided Lee with one of the busiest yet exciting times so far in
China as so many volunteers, groups and day visitors came through.
Now at the end of October this of course has quietened down
immensely leaving Lee with time to spare. This also came at a time
when our church in Beijing wanted Lee to be able to give more time
to the church. The end result of this, through a lot of prayer, has
been that Lee has handed over the administration side of his
volunteer coordinating to Robin and Joyce. He will still work with
groups that come through, which I have to say is his gifting. He
will concentrate on helping with the maintenance work in the
“off-season” and in the time that this frees up Lee has taken a
part-time position with the church. His role is to develop the
worship of the church both through music, scripture and media. He
started the work in September and so far has been very happy with
the way things have gone. We wanted to tell you also that this
position comes with a monthly contribution to costs. This has been
an immense blessing to us, and was a surprise as we were not aware
of the amount we would receive before Lee took the work.
Many
of you contribute to us being here and so if this concerns you in
any way please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Our
finances are your finances and so we do not want to hide where we
stand from you. The plan for this money is outlined below:
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Pay off costs that the car has being causing us (see below)
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10% to go to charitable work outside of HFH, possibly a street
children project in Beijing
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The remainder is to be saved towards our travel home budget for
2007.
Life in China:
It
has been corn season again and we just wanted to share with you a
few images of the views we have had in our village over the past
month. It really is a community project when it comes to harvesting
the crops. The females in the first photo are mostly our night
nannies and together with other members of their families they work
really hard to get the crops prepared. It was certainly not easy to
drive anywhere in the villages for most of September due to corn
piles everywhere. Now there is a sweet burning smell in the air as
the leaves and stalks are disposed of. These experiences are one of
the privileges of living in such a rural area. We really enjoy
seeing this side of china life.
Prayer:
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This month we have a number of areas that we could ask you
to pray about but we are not going to include them. Instead
we would like those of you who pray for us to pray for one
thing this month.
Ryan Cockbill is a member of the youth group that we used to
help run in Aldridge. In the summer he was involved in a
freak accident which has resulted in him being diagnosed as
Tetraplegic. We would like you to pray for God to heal
Ryan, support and comfort his family and for those who care
for him to be given strength to keep going (including all
those YF members who have been incredible in visiting him
and writing to him).
Our needs seem so small when we think of Ryan’s situation
and this month we would ask you to join us as we pray for
him each day. |
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Needs:
Do
you remember last October we brought a Jeep Cherokee. It has been a
wonderfully amusing vehicle to have with its little problems, like
the boot door pistons breaking and catapulting me into the boot!!
The breaks locking ON!! However the last month has seen these small
problems grow into more expensive and more frustrating problems.
This month we have broken down twice, been towed and the car has
been in several times since to correct problems as well as one of
the seat belts falling out of the roof!! This has raised issues of
whether the car is actually structurally sound. Yesterday our
heating system gave up (nicely timed for the winter!!).
Our concern is the drain on resources the car is being now but most
importantly that with a minimum 45min drive to anywhere our car is
our only source of independence. This month we will be looking at
the options of upgrading the current vehicle or possibly selling
this one and getting a different one. If anyone has any connections
with companies that could help us or if you live in Beijing and know
of someone who is selling a vehicle that is reliable please do get I
touch with us. We will update you on our progress next month.
Thank
you again for all your support, for all the emails, and thanks so
much to all those connected to YF who got in touch this week, it was
wonderful to hear from you all, we will get back to all of you as
soon as we can.
With much love,
Lee
and Becky –xx-
