Having arrived in Hechi and had a leisurely morning to recover, we are now excited to be heading to Desheng to share the Hopes and Dreams of our special Desheng Girls
- two of our High School girls even joined us early for breakfast, fearing they would be unable to get time off school to join us.
Never fear, Matthew just called their teachers and they were given special dispensation to come with us!!!!!
Gathering the Team at Hechi Hotel...ready for the 30 min drive to Desheng..well most of them :-)
And before we know it, there we are at the gates of Desheng Primary School. Having some time to wait for the rest of the team, it was lovely just to wander around and watch the children as they played outside - they are doing some exercise with their teacher here.....
Of course as soon as they were aware they had visitors...
it was a different story!!!!
When the bell sounded for the end of morning lessons, some walked sedately down with their teacher
to meet the parents waiting at the gates
Others had a bit more fun along the way
LOVE these wee excited faces :-)
But, WHERE is Ossi?
A Penny for these thoughts........
After all the other children had left, we gathered together all our special girls
from Desheng Primary and Middle school.
It was so good to see them all again and see how much they had grown since last year.
Sometimes it was hard to recognise them?
Then the girls piled into the vans as we all made our way downtown to
"our" restaurant"
to meet the rest of the girls from around the Desheng area
When we read the reports the girls write each year, it is amazing how often they refer to this yearly event as their Highlight. Each year we meet, we bring letters, photos, gifts from sponsors. We celebrate all our Birthdays together and just enjoy sharing time with our daughters who spent their early years in Desheng and the older Desheng girls whom we have come to know and love...it never ceases to amaze me at such times, how small our world can be, and yet how amazingly vast!
How amazing that we have all been brought together in this way?
Before we left for China, knowing how many girls we would visit, and of course remembering our first time visitors, we made sure we had a name label for EVERYONE so we could all enjoy getting to know each other.
So, it didn't take long for this lovely girl to find her sponsor visiting her for the very first time. Andrea has sent so many lovely letters, photos and gifts, building up the special relationship with this lovely girl....but how much more exciting to meet in the flesh!
Special, special moment...the expression on that sweet face.......
"Needless to say it was fabulous to meet in person - particularly touching moment when Teng Fang and Lucie exchanged the wish stars that Ellen had helped them make." Andrea
...and the joy and excitement on this little face as she meets the sponsors she has communicated with for years
. ..this time last year, this lovely girl was at our Desheng party, one of our girls.
This year she is working here - very capable - obviously in management - and doing a great job!!!!!
Mrs Manna and her family meeting "their girls" for the first time - I know it was so special for all of them...but have to say these meetings were one of the highlights of my whole trip :-)
The whole purpose of Hope4China is...to bring Hope...and these visits are just the icing on the cake!!!!!!
It is so important to these girls to know that they are special and valuable - sponsors coming all the way to visit them is just the job!!!!!!
And I would just like at this point to thank ALL the amazing sponsors who give these girls the priceless gift of Hope for the future ( maybe YOU will be with us, next year ;-)
Now time to relax and eat with new friends, and old :-)
After all the introductions, and eating together, it was time to move on to a new area in our work.
Ellen explains......
All of us grow up formulating some sort of dream, a vision of how we’d like our future to unfold. When we are young, that dream generally knows no bounds, and we aren’t yet obstructed by the boundaries of wealth or education or talent. We just ... ‘dream’ ... and tuck our hopes into our heart
For our GGEF girls, their sponsorships help keep their ‘dreams’ alive, longer than we can appreciate. We were fortunate to be in the company of over 130 GGEF girls during our recent visit to Guangxi, and their inspiration and ‘hopes’ emanated from them like a beacon. Perhaps most remarkable is their insight and perseverance to be successful, and to make the most of the life they have been dealt.
Part of our intention during our visit with the girls was to engage them in a ‘life vision’ exercise ... something they would create that would visually represent their desires, their hopes, their dreams, and their ‘focus’ for their future. We wanted to help ‘plant some seeds’ for them, and to remind them that what they hold in their hearts is possible, regardless of the discouragement they may encounter along the way.
To achieve this, I knew that we would need a ‘visual’ exercise to help the girls take what was held in their hearts, and give it ‘life’, some sense of reality. In my coaching work, one of the first activities I ask people to engage in is to create a ‘collage’ – a type of ‘Dream Board or Vision Board’. I ask them to choose images, words, prose, symbols, etc. that are meaningful to them either in terms of what they want to preserve in their life, or what they want to create for their life. This ‘visual’ translates into a constant reminder to strive towards those desires.
We had limited time with the GGEF girls, so I created a scaled down version which came in the form of a small 3 inch by 3 inch little book, folded in an origami style that the girls filled with their hopes and dreams. In this form, the girls could carry it with them, or keep it safe somewhere private. I prepared dozens of phrases, words, quotes and life values in mandarin that they could choose from (and I included the English translation so that we could understand the dreams held by the girls). Additionally, many of the girls frequently wrote their own messages in their books. We provided plenty of colourful stickers to complement the girls’ Hopes and Dreams.
The result was quite rewarding as we listened to the girls take turns explaining how they chose to complete the activity, and why they selected some of the life values and principles that they did. Many of the GGEF girls shared their creation publicly; for others the exercise was handled with a more private sense of pride. Even our own girls created their ‘Hopes and Dreams’ booklets!
For me, watching the degree of eagerness, creativity and joy among the girls as they created their ‘life visions’ brought a sense of validation that regardless of where we are in the world, we all have dreams and we all have a heart that hopes they will one day come true.
It was wonderful to watch as Ellen led the girls through these activities...and it was fantastic to know that we could share in a little part of our girls Hopes and Dreams.........
