Maria's

July 30,2013

Many of you knew that I was going to try really hard to try to visit Maria's Big House of Hope while in China. Thrilled that last weekend it worked out for the other Stephanie and I to make the trip to LY for a couple of days. Stephanie one of the other volunteers here at New Hope was very interested in coming down with me as this was her first trip to China. I was excited to go to the Big Blue house that I had visited and helped at on my past trips. For those that don't know Maria's Big House of Hope was built and funded by Show Hope ( Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapmen's organization ) in partnership with New Hope Foundation . Maria's is the home to 140 critical care special needs babies. Mariah who is the head nurse at Maria's and I have kept in contact over the past 4 years. My first trip to China was a week after she arrived. It was wonderful to sit and talk to her for a bit and show her some updated pictures of my crazy family.

Stephanie, Stephanie and Mariah 

I was super excited to reconnect with the staff at Maria's,some of which I've had the honor to call friends for the last 4 yrs. It was also great to hang out and talk to the 2 interns down there. Dan came over a couple weeks before me and will be leaving in August too. Kelsi arrived about a week after me and will be there until October. They are both so wonderful and you can tell they are a huge blessing to all the kids there. I was also able to meet the wonderful Martin family, which I have heard so much about. Dr. Steve is the in house doctor at Maria's. He lives there with his wife Laura and their 6 kiddos.

I loved being able just to float in and out of nurseries and have none of kids know me. Yes, I know that sounds strange but whenever I walk into a nursery at Hope I am attacked by my preschoolers. This means I never get to sit and hold any babies!! So I had 2 goals while I was visiting the nurseries at Maria's.  The first was to go and find the tiniest,(holdable)baby in house! I was able to do just that and for a solid hour I just loved on this tiny bit of God's perfection! 

My second goal was to find all the babies that have been blessed with an extra chromosome like my brother. I loved going around and playing or holding all the sweet babies with Down syndrome. They just melted my heart and made me miss Jameson and the rest of my siblings so much more.

It was a wonderful trip but I could not wait to get back to New Hope and see all the kiddos that I know and love. I missed the feeling of knowing all the kids names when I walked into a nursery.

I have attached a few pictures to the blog from my trip

~Stephanie 

It was a super clear day flying out of Beijing

The Sponsor team was still there for our last night so we enjoyed a rooftop cookout with them.

Painting done by Stephanie H. 

1st birthdays and Jello fun!!

July 24,2013

What a fun week it has been! Last week we gave the kids jello for snack because we were working on the letter “J”. It was so funny watching the kids reactions when they first touched and tasted the jello. Some were not big fans but for the most part the kids LOVED it and finally got the hang of picking it up. Callie, Stephanie and I had lots of fun de-sticking all the kiddos and the classroom!

Hayes was not sure about the Jello at first but the spoon made everything better!

Liam just went for it!

Marisol thought Jello was yummy! 

Our class also celebrated a 1st birthday! Ted is the youngest “student” in class and turned 1 on Thursday! So, what does every 1 year old need??? Of course a cupcake with chocolate icing! In honor of Ted’s birthday all 5 classes got cupcakes for snack. I think the ayi’s thought we were crazy for giving them cupcakes but all but one of the kids was a big fan. Lots of chocolate hands and faces and they were so adorable!!!!

David thought his cupcake was yummy!

Zachary had the best Chocolate face!

Ted the Birthday boy!!!

1st Birthday cupcake 

Yummy!!!

Since, I had made cupcakes we decided to take some into the village for the kids. We went during the dance lessons (which Callie, Stephanie, and a couple of the nurses have been going too.) We also brought paint, bubbles and chalk. Most of the kids that come to the park during this time are the children of ayi’s at New Hope. The kids had so much fun making handprint butterflies and flowers. They also LOVED the cupcakes and some of them told us they had never had chocolate before. It was fun serving some of the local children around as well.

Dancing in the park 

Lots and lots of artwork 

With 2 of the kids YaYa and Frank 

YaYa's mom is one of the Ayi's at New Hope

We painted lots of hands 

Stephanie and I are heading down to Maria’s Big House of Hope tomorrow and spending a couple of days down there. It will be fun to take her to another wonderful place and spend time with the babies and staff down there.

~Stephanie

** More pictures on my Facebook of swimming with the kids**

Back at New Hope

July 14,2013

This week has been fun getting back into the swing of preschool classes and life here at New Hope. When I arrived back to NH, I was walking back down the hall towards my room, I pass two of the nurseries and when the kids saw me they all started yelling “Stephanie” and “We love you.”! It was great to see all their smiling faces again, and know that I would have a couple more weeks to kiss their sweet cheeks and create more memories in preschool class. Before I left I started making ABC artwork books for my older classes. It has been so much fun working through the alphabet and putting together these books that will hopefully one day make it to each of the kids “forever families”. 

One of the other big things I have planned to work on in class over these next couple of weeks is putting together something special for each of the children's nannies. I have taken “school pictures” and have those all printed out, now all that is left is to have each of the kids paint or color a picture for their nannies. These ladies are wonderful and care for the kids as if they were their own. I wanted to be able to give them something to keep as a memory when the kids move on for their adoptions.

One of the other volunteer’s here right now and my roommate is also named Stephanie. She did such a wonderful job taking over the preschool class for me while I was away. It has also been wonderful having an extra set of hands in the classroom during art projects. She put together this great video that shows you a bit of what my life is like this summer. Here is the linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Tw9djzsWU

This week we have several different volunteer’s arriving for various amounts of time and the weather looks like it is going to be rain free....hoping that means we will be able to go to the pool a couple more times! They have been asking when we were going to go back to the “water”.

I have attached some pictures from class this week! I hope you enjoy looking at their sweet faces as much as I do!

Harry loves to sit and read books! 

Love kissing those chubby cheeks! 

Someone found himself in the mirror! 

We took the morning class out on a nice walk around the village.

Paul is a very serious about his coloring

You just have to love this face! 

~Stephanie

Hope Foster Home (Shunyi, Beijing)

www.youtube.com

New Hope Foundation Summer 2013 Shunyi Beijing, China www.hopefosterhome.com

Sweet faces

This post is just some b&w pictures I have taken since I have been here. I hope you enjoy looking at these sweet faces! <3 

Korea

I have to first start off by saying a HUGE thank you to the whole Harris family. They made this visa run the best it could have been. It was great catching up with them and getting a little slice of home that I miss so much. I was able to share about New Hope and show off pictures of the cuties that live there. Because this was Andrew’s (their oldest) last 2 weeks in Korea before he leaves for school we were able to do some fun sightseeing. I have attached at the bottom lots of pictures from our adventures out and about and captioned them with where they were taken. I have learned that Korean’s LOVE to shop and you can find a store to shop in just about anywhere you look. One of our crazy ventures out was to the fish market. Lets just say that it smells rather fishy there and when you leave the smell follows you home. It was cool to see all the types of fish they have for sale there and they will just pull the one out of the tank you want and cut it up right there in front of you. You can even buy stingray, giant crabs and octopus legs! As Ms. Christy Harris says “it is the zoo that you eat!” We were also able to visit the Korean War Museum, which was neat to see the Korean side of some of the wars. It also had me thinking about all of the Irizarry boys at home! How much they would have loved every bit of it. One of my favorite places was the flower market. It was crazy the amount of flowers and all the different kinds the different stands had. You could get any kind of flower you could have thought of and all the accessory’s to make a beautiful banquet. They even had a whole section that was filled with bright and colorful fake flowers that from a distance you would have never guessed. Some of my favorite times over the last 2 weeks were just hanging out with the Harris family at the pool, watching movies, and eating yummy home cooked, real American food (like taco bell!) and going to ZUMBA.

 I am so excited to get back to New Hope and see all those sweet faces again and get ready to celebrate 2 special birthday’s this month!!!! Right before I left for my Korea trip Joyce Hill the founder of New Hope went into a coma that she then had recovered from and was sent home. The day after I left they went back the hospital for a follow up and while waiting for test results Joyce went into a coma worse then the first time. At one point it was not looking good at all. Through lots of prayers and the Joyce’s amazing strength she was just moved this weekend out of ICU and the doctor’s believe she will make a full recovery. This is such an amazing answer to prayers. Here just 2 weeks ago they thought they had lost her and all the family begin arriving to say their goodbyes. Joyce still has a long road to a full recovery but I am positive with the amazing prayer warriors all around the world that she will be able to pull through this. You can find the latest updates of Joyce on the New Hope page http://www.hopefosterhome.com/

I just want to thank the amazing Harris family again for their support over these last 2 weeks. Also, I would like to thank all of you for praying for me during my trip.

~Stephanie

Itaewon

Itaewon

Myeongdong  

Krispy Kremes in Myeongdong

 Campfire fun

Pool fun

Fish Market

Hi from the fish market 

Fish market 

Flower market 

Roses galore 

Flower market

Shinsegae

Shinsegae

Flavored tape anyone??

Korean War Museum 

Korean War Museum

Korean War Museum 

**More pictures coming soon!**

~Stephanie