Welcome

Dear All,
We must apologise for our absence in writing over the summer. It has been somewhat chaotic! Sitting here looking at the calendar I cannot quite believe that so much was crammed into July and August. We literally had 100s of volunteers and visitors. We actually enjoyed the summer immensely and found the challenge of coordinating, supervising and looking after these people rewarding, as well as tiring. The summer ended well, with a visit from Lee’s mum, plus a few familiar faces from the parish.

We found this very uplifting especially as they were here to help me celebrate my birthday (a lady should never reveal her age but it was one of those ominous ones containing a zero!). I had a snazzy new camera for my birthday so expect some super photos on future updates. Lee tells me he is giving me 12 months to become photographer of the year – perhaps a little ambitious. A big thank you for all the gifts and cards I received. It was a very special birthday, made even more memorable by the items that mum and the group were able to bring over.

Robin and Joyce also took their well deserved break over the summer and we are pleased to report that the place is still standing and they came back refreshed and glad that they had not had to think about the foster home for a few weeks.

The biggest news to report is that we have made the 12 months mark here, which seems to have come around so fast. We know we’ve been here a year as the corn is high in the fields ready to be harvested, the temperature has dropped to a nice bearable level, the tomato sellers once again line the roads…and the stink bugs are back!!

It is wonderful to be in a country and in surroundings where the seasons are so evident. Better eat as many melons as possible before they disappear for the winter. The first of September was officially the start of the autumn here.

It was quite a sight to see the children at the foster home getting kitted out in their clothes for the cooler weather, even though it was still 28 degrees outside. The summer dresses and shorts have gone away, despite the fact that all the foreigners here are still in summer wear.

We would just like to say a huge thank you to all those who responded after our last newsletter regarding finances. We are always overwhelmed by the generosity of those who feel able or led to support us in this way and we won’t have to come home anytime soon.

Life at the home
Those of you who receive the HFH newsletters will know of a new unit that we are opening in Luo Yang, a city in the same province as our palliative care unit. This Special care unit will have a similar function to the PCU but will also be a place where we can look after the children who need chronic care. Lee was there helping to set up the unit earlier this week with Bill Lewis and he’ll fill you in on his time there.

LuoYang is a big city in Henan Province and the orphanage is a 6 story building with 500 Orphans ranging from new born to teens and the 100 out in foster care with local people. The Unit Hope has just opened is on the 5^th floor.

It has been completely renovated throughout and when I arrived I could not get over the difference it made. We had two lorries go down and Bill and I were helped by kids, local people, orphanage staff and anyone else who could help. We flew in at 9am and by 11am the lorries were heading back to Beijing!!!

The main task Bill and I had was to assemble the 45 cots and rockers, help Alan and Lyn Gould (who will move from the UK fulltime in November) put all the supplies in the right rooms and then begin purchasing office furniture, supplies, desks, chairs, beds, cupboards, tv’s fridges etc etc etc. After all the negotiations in Chinese had finished two days later my brain hurt.

Luoyang has now opened and taken in it first 6 babies. Sadly one of these passed away on the first night. He is with the Lord. It was such a privaledge to go to Luoyang and I hope to return again soon to see the children that have now arrived.

Kindergarten
I had two children turn 3 years old over the summer; Ling Quan (Andrea Ellen) and Guo Fu (Zachary). They both had birthday parties complete with cake, balloons, silly hats, pass the parcel and musical chairs. (There is a very amusing video clip that we have sent to www.aldridgeparishchurch.co.uk of Ling Quan’s birthday, but Guo Fu makes a surprise entrance, cheeky little fella!!!)

Some of the kindergarten children, never having been given gooey birthday cake before found inventive ways to eat it – the prize going to Xin Dong (Aurora) who refused to get her fingers messy!

As the children get older I am finding that I need to get more creative with the kindergarten activities to help their development. Our volunteers now spend time with a few of the children on a one to one basis so that they can have a further opportunity to play and learn. This is particularly relevant to Dang Da Jian (Joseph).

He is a four year old boy who spent 3 months in Hong Kong receiving and recovering from surgery. His main carers during that time were English speaking volunteers and so he has returned to the Foster Home with a very good level of English.

If you were to ask him about his trip to Disney Land, Hong Kong, he would tell you that “Da Jian give Mickey Mickey a kiss on the nose!” He is very bright, playful, stubborn, has the sad puppy dog face down to perfection and is yet another heart stealer here!

There are now 11 children in the Kindergarten. Robin announced in our staff meeting this morning that we need to pray for them to be adopted soon! But in the meantime, please pray for me as I try and do my best for these children. I have a real desire to help these children in their mental development so that they have every opportunity available to them when they are adopted and are not too far behind their peers. Ultimately, they do need families though. Every time one of the children does something for the first time or comes to show me something they’ve found, or simply calls me because they need my help, I just think of the important role a parent plays in those things. If we could we would give these children away to people who we know would love them. We can’t but we know they have one who loves them immeasurably more and we pray desperately for families for each of these children.

We have actually just found out that Guo Fu is definitely adopted! We are unsure as to when he may leave us but it is with joyful hearts (but also a little sadness as I’ll miss him) that we await more news.

Please remember Aurora in your prayers. As you read this she is in Singapore receiving surgery for a very complicated heart condition. We had a boy receive similar surgery in May who very sadly died during the process. This means that although there is only a very slight chance of the same happening again we are very anxious about her. We are hoping that she will only need to be in Singapore for a couple of weeks and so please pray for her safety and quick recovery

Only in China

China has some wonderful little things that cannot help but make you chuckle. One we had recently was this cleaning crew tidying up one of the streets. Vacuuming the streets!!!!

There will be more of these to come in the next update as corn has been harvested now and that means lots of silly loads on small vehicles and corn spread all over the roads.

Final words and prayers.
As we embark on the second year thank you again for all you do for us. Please continue to be innovative with the things you send us, they make us laugh. Thank you to everyone who gets up early to phone us, email us and now Skype Us!! It makes such a difference to us knowing that we are in your thoughts and prayers.

Big thanks to the Brownies in Clayhanger whose card still remains on our bedside table and the Brownies in Bolton for the lovely messages they sent to the children. There are many individuals who have walked with us every mile and more and we are so very thankful. We hope you have enjoyed the adventure we are on together this year and are looking forward to the challenges ahead. If you want to change the way you are involved in this ministry then please do get in touch with us, if you know someone who would like to read this then please pass it on, print it off as we know there are people without email who we post them to but we want to make sure no one gets left out.

Pray:

For Health and energy as the winter approaches.
Opportunities for exercise as we both try and slim down from a year of Chinese feasting.
For Xin Dong (Shin dong) who is recovering from major heart surgery in Singapore.
For our car that seems to be having some regular “issues”
Thanks for the way he is using us, changing us, challenging us and leading us.

Thank you for reading what we are up to, don’t forget to check out the video clip and hope to hear from you during the month.

Love Lee and Becky

-xx-

P.S. We have literally just found out about the situation of another of our little boys here. Those of you who receive Joyce’s updates will have received details from her already. For every one else here is his story

Joey - Dang Jian Yu is 10 months old. He is from Luoyang SWI and was abandoned because he was born with his bladder outside of his body. Joey came to our home when he was only a month old and we arranged for him to have surgery on his bladder in Hong Kong by a Urologist whose specialty is Bladder exstrophy. His surgery was successful despite some minor infection and he was returned to us last month. Since then he has not been well. He returned to Hong Kong’s Matilda Hospital 3 days ago and after thorough investigations they have found that he has a malignant brain tumour. His neurosurgeon tells me that if they operate now, and he goes through 6 courses of chemotherapy he has an 80% chance of a cure. The tumour is localized and has not spread. St Mary’s Hospital has a team all ready including pediatric oncologists waiting to accept Joey.

Please pray for this little boy. This news has come as a complete shock to us all.