Off we go........

I have come to realise that half of my year is spent preparing for a Trip to China.
The other half is spent recovering and sending out all the information gathered!!!!!!

A pretty good way to spend a year :-)

We were SO busy preparing for this special trip that I had no time to even mention it here.

However before the Team begin to share their experiences here, thought we should let you know how we got there..............................So as I sit at 3am in Jetlag fog, maybe now is the time to begin.......................

Praying for direction , as always, we were amazingly led to  a new group of people wishing to share the work in Guangxi - lots of new talent, experience, insight, training and practical help for our Guangxi children. Also lots of additional support ( financial &otherwise) behind the scenes which of course makes our work possible.

Our aim was to continue the steady growth and development of our work with foster families and children thro Grace& Hope for Children, meeting with the families and children, having fun, sharing gifts, meeting any needs - medical or otherwise and encouraging the foster mothers in their so important jobs.

In addition to continuing our work with our Guangxi girls thro GGEF, we wanted to move our developing relationships with the girls to a new level. We spend a lot of time and effort communicating with the girls over the year, building relationships between the girls and their sponsors. Our work and support is not about money - it is about inspiring each girl to believe in themselves and reach for their dreams. As they have written to us about their hopes and fears, we want to continue to visit, building trust and sharing our hopes and fears.
So this year, in addition to the fun we always have,  we wanted to introduce more reflection with the girls to create more confidence and self-esteem.

Continuing our work at New Hope for Special Children, we wanted primarily to encourage our dedicated staff, and build on her excellent work with the children and foster families. And then to put new training in place to help each child develop to their full potential.

I have long wished to visit the unique area of Da Mo, a remote Miao minority village in Jingxi, where a friend, Shelley helped to set up programme to help girls there. This time I also hoped to work with another friend to set up a doll & embroidery business to enable the Da Mo women to share their skills and become self-supportive.

Amazingly as we communicated with friends in China to plan our trip, all of the above areas and more, were incorporated into in our itinerary. We are so thankful for their help in these areas.
We were set!!!!!!

Then the real work began working with sponsors we prepared gifts and photos for all the foster families we would meet - a big task in itself!!!!!

The Teddy Bear's Picnic was created in my mind...and off we went on an amazing journey connecting so many people around the world, to provide a Teddy Bear and clothes, accessories for each girl. This took many, many months of planning with special help from Build-a-Bear in Glasgow and Edinburgh

 I also visited local charity shops and built up a supply of wonderful Teddies needing new homes :-). This lovely lady in Dunfermline is excited to see photos of her teddies in China!!!!!!

 We got a bit carried away organising the outfits and accessories :-)
Wonderful sponsors around the world sent donations, teddies and outfits

                                      Chaos of Teddies......arriving in 3 homes, bound for China

                                          Special friend to help bring order out of chaos.......

                                                                  Lists and labels......

                       Very special little helpers who carefully put stickers on the labels for the girls

                  Some of the donations to create sensory boxes in the homes of each New Hope child.

                                Letters, photos, small gifts for Buckhaven pupils to send to China

 Lists and more lists of over 150 girls, with sponsors names in Desheng, Yizhou, Da Mo, Nanning.

NO mean feat to match all the names, teddies and donations!!!!!!!

Finally some order out of the chaos

Then the final squishing to get them packed in suitcases for the long journey

I cannot find the words or the space to thank all of the wonderful people who made all of this possible and we look forward to sharing the photos of the Teddy Bears meeting their girls in China!!!!!!!

Meanwhile Ellen was busy preparing special activities for our Guangxi girls....

Shawn was busy preparing training for Helen and our special children...

Friends in China were meeting together and consulting with SWI and local groups.

In addition to all of this we were meeting with special friends from Finland and Hong Kong in Desheng Town, Guangxi and making special preparations for our trip.

There were indeed days when we wondered if we would ever get there, but miraculously it all came together, and we set off for Hong Kong on the 14th October to begin our adventures.

Looking forward to sharing news of our travels......