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Here’s a post from Andrew’s blog about what he’ll be doing at The Philip Hayden Foundation Orphanage this August. I’ll be home with the boys this time but am SO excited for Andrew and the team to be working with this amazing orphanage. Honestly, almost every day a precious little face of one of the kids we met in November at PHF pops into my head. Here’s the details:
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We are excited to share with you an exciting opportunity Andrew has to lead a team from our church back to the Philip Hayden Foundation orphanage (PHF) this August! This is the orphanage we were both at last November just outside of Beijing. The children and the work there captured our hearts and we knew as soon as we got home we’d start planning the next trip back. This time Jess will stay home with the boys, but we hope to go back as a family in a couple years. Andrew will be taking 13 people from our church, a mix of all ages and stages in life – some of whom are students in our youth group, which is really exciting.
As you might remember from our last letter, PHF cares for special needs children with anything from cleft lip and palette to heart problems, deformities, etc. They have a team of doctors, surgeons, special needs teachers, and other volunteers working to care for these abandoned children. Chinese nannies give daily care and are there for long, consistent amounts of time which helps the children feel stable and secure. Our hearts were especially touched by these children labeled ‘special needs’. After one day of being at the orphanage we realized that although they may have some major health challenges they are like any other child- just wanting to play, laugh, be loved and cared for. You can see PHF’s website and read more info online at www.chinaorphans.org.
This summer’s ministry will consist of helping care for the children and running a day camp for them. The staff of PHF also expressed their desire to have us help teach the nannies how to play with the children for emotional and physical growth and emotional connection. Because PHF is a privately funded orphanage depending entirely on support from donors to operate, we will also be lending a hand and doing practical work that needs to be done around the facility that they don’t have the resources to tackle.
We are choosing to invest in an ongoing basis in the work done at PHF and have a desire to see the needs of these children met and the vision of PHF furthered not only for the children in their care but the surrounding area as well as China as a whole. Yes- we are dreaming big, and hoping God can use us in even a small way in the work already going on in China as well as the radical impact this work will have on our team, church, and community.
We ask for your prayer support- remembering our team as we prepare to go. We also need to raise $2000 for Andrew to lead this outreach. If you feel able and moved to give there are two ways you can do this- by sending us a (tax deductible) check made out to ‘Liberty Lake Community Church’ and the memo line reading ‘China Outreach’, or you can donate online.
Thanks for being a part of our lives and the work done at PHF!
In Him, Andrew
“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”
- Jesus, Matthew 25:40
