results of the pottery sale fundraiser

The picture above was sent to me today by our guide, Raymond, who received it from the directors of the Huazhou Orphanage showing one of the tv's and dvd's in use we purchased while there a short while ago. We were so pleased to be able to purchase a few much-needed items for them.

Below I have included some pictures from the sale we had - I seem to have overlooked the results in the last couple of postings and my sister was asking what the results were, so I wanted to include that, as without the generous gifting of this beautiful porcelain, there would not have been a sale, nor would there have been the needed funds to purchase these items, nor provide cleft lip/pallet surgeries for two babies, nor fit a room out at the Anhui Cleft Healing Home!! We raised nearly 50,000 Hong Kong Dollars, which amounts to about $6,250 U.S. Dollars!!
These are the 70 boxes of hand-painted porcelain that we had packed a few days prior. Of course, we were concerned with how we were going to actually transport all of these boxes to Discovery Bay from Kowloon, but God had a hand in that as well and provided a generous donation from a man in the church who co-owns a moving truck. I don't think we could have fit these in a taxi and it would have cost quite a bit to rent a van, which would cut into our profits. We weren't a little nervous about how many people would come and how many boxes we would be repacking once it was over!
The porcelain-packin' crew. Everyone worked hard to clean, price, sell and pack up peoples' purchases. You might wonder, "where are all these lovely ladies from?" Well, I will tell you that: Sweden, Singapore, Canada, Dubai, South Africa, USA and Britain! We're the United Nations, I guess.
We had soooooo much to sell, the floors were covered, tables covered, every even surface, with porcelain!
Ahhh, success, happy people carrying heavy bags of porcelain out the door. People were very generous and I heard many times that they didn't really "need" it, but since it was going for a good cause, why not!?

The "partial" end result of our labor was standing in the appliance store with the directors of the orphanage and our guide Raymond and asking them what they needed. It was fun to raise the money, but of course it was even more fun shopping and spending it!!!! We sent the other half of our procees to Love Without Boundaries to provide the surgeries and room completion.

A harsh reality

I wanted to post a few more pictures of the Huazhou orphanage and say a bit more about our time we spent there. Before coming to this orphanage, I had been to Hefei (Ellen's orphanage) and Shaogaun, (Maddie Rae's orphanage) so I think my expectation was that it would be similar to these; however, it was really nothing like them, except for the actual buildings themselves. Hefei and Shaogaun have been the beneficaries of some wonderful foundations out there dedicated to helping China's orphans. They come in and build out beautifully furnished playrooms and playgrounds, train nannies, create foster families, etc. I have incluced a picture from Hefei in here so you can compare the two rooms.

The playroom in Huazhou, stark, just a couple of ride-on type toys - we brought several toys that we are unwrapping here.

These precious angels were laying on boards that were painted and the paint was chipping. Not a good combination for a little one like this. I am working to find out the dimensions of the cribs and finding appropriate padding, as the babies don't wear diapers so it needs to be something that wipes up easily and is sanitary and a bit of a cushion too.
These little girls - yes, girls - were initially very leary of us, as they should be. There's no playground outside, so they stay inside, I would imagine, the majority of the time.
There were two nannies for this baby room, with about 25 babies, and the adjacent playroom of about seven toddlers.

Trip to Huazhou

We had an incredible trip back to the place of Zoe's birth this past weekend. It took eight hours on a train to get there, but thankfully we were not alone in our unique journey, as we were once again accompanied by our good friends, the Christensen family, who joined us this time last year on our return to Hefei, the place of Ellen's birth.

Zoe was born in Huazhou, Guangdong, a town near the North Vietnam border. We chose to take the train after having found out if we flew it would take virtually the same amount of time due to there not being direct flights near where we needed to go. So, always up for an adventure, some of us more than others, we chose the train. Mmmm, could write a few blog entires on that experience . . .

The pictures are in no particular order, and if you want to get a fuller view of them, just double-click!
Yes, that is actually blue sky and clouds, not Photoshopped in either! I took this on the Star Ferry ride over to Kowloon to the train station.
The view looking out from the orphanage balcony.
Lorne and his camera fans.
Okay, here's the story behind this one: The train stopped on the way to Maoming to let another train pass. That's a good thing. However, when I looked outside the window, I thought, "Oh my word, that's a snake he has!" He went and washed it off in this big mud puddle and then put it in a bag and attached it to the back of his belt (you can see two bags he has attached to his belt) and took off on his bike. Guess we knew what he was having for dinner. I just wanted the train to start before snakeman tried to auction his yummy morcel to someone on the train. Yikes!!!!
Zoe and Hannah standing at Zoe's "finding spot"

You see people transporting some incredible loads in China! Lorne said the bamboo went about 3 feet beyond what he was able to capture with his camera.
Our beautiful smiley girl, Ellen.
The beginning of our train journey to Maoming. The look on the train assistant's face looking at Nadine poking her head out the door is funny. Crazy Gweilo people, she is probably thinking.
The area where Zoe was born was once part of the Vietnam Kingdom, according to our guide, Raymond, and he said that it looks very much like Vietnam today.
Just hangin' out (literally) on the train back to Guangzhou.

Here we are standing at Zoe's "finding spot," located on a busy street across from the Real Estate Bureau of Huazhou. That is Hannah and Noah Christensen and also Raymond, our dear friend, who was our guide for Ellen as well as Zoe.
The three directors of the orphanage treated us to a sumptuous lunch. They indicated to Brad that as the head of the family, he got the "honor" of eating the chicken's head. I had to laugh to myself because he "chickened" out and let Raymond show him how it was done, but they let him vamp for the camera here, after which Brad gladly handed the head over to Raymond.

It was so great to see smiles on the faces of these little ones enjoying the little toys that we brought.