Canada Tour Snapshots

Katie and Kristen from the Bring Me Hope Team have been hitting the road this Spring to spread the word about the orphan situation in China.

"We've seen God work in amazing ways during our speaking tours," Kristen Chase says.

"People are open to hearing the truth about what these children go through and by God's grace they are responding!

We are seeing people wanting to volunteer at China, sponsor orphans for a week at camp, and also be challenged by the way they live in their own communities! It's amazing to witness God at work!"

Nutrition for Malnourished Orphans

"I went to the XinXiang Orphanage with eight other Bring Me Hope Club Members. We decided to help the orphans with their lives and their studies. This orphanage is a special one because the children's parents are in prison as a result of family violence. We stayed with the children for only one week, and we all became best friends. There are about twenty five children in this orphanage, and six of them are girls. The average age of these children is twelve. They are very polite and adorable, living together like a big family.

During that week, we shared every meal together with the children. However, I found a problem: there were no fresh vegetables for the children to eat during breakfast or supper. The children eat the same food every day. For breakfast, there is only porridge and mantou (Chinese rolls). For lunch there are some noodles with only a little bit of cabbage. For dinner they have porridge and mantou again. Every day the meals are the same.

When I had dinner with them, I often felt sorry for them. Their bodies are in an important stage of growing up, and they need to get enough nutrition to strengthen their body every day.

After I left the orphanage, an idea occurred to me: We should do something to change the situation. I estimated that it would take about 2,000 RMB every month to provide them with vegetables (or sometimes milk) at every meal. It is really on my heart to help these children to grow up healthy. Personally, I will donate 300 RMB every month, but that was not enough. So I sent out an email to all of my foreign teachers asking for their help.

Many of the teachers replied and donated money for the children to have vegetables at every meal! I just did a little, all work was done by our Father."

Below are some pictures of the children at the XinXiang Orphanage eating vegetables, thanks to a Chinese University student wanting to make a difference!

Night Walk Flyer Download

Right Click Save, Print, & POST the Night Walk Flyer!!! We need your help!

Register for the Night Walk here: www.bringmehope.org

"Hannah's Story" wins Best Documentary!

Hannah's Story won "Best Documentary" at the Fallbrook Film Festival yesterday! Thanks for all of your support!

Bolts visit University Clubs in China!

Brother/Sister team David and Rebecca Bolt have been busy visiting Bring Me Hope University Clubs in China this Spring! They are reconnecting with college students who have a heart for orphans as well as encouraging them of greater ways to be involved in the kids lives. Please keep them in your prayers!

Sisters Help Orphan with Cerebral Palsy

We have arrived back from China safe, sound, and blessed. We did not have internet in China so I am afraid that this may be a long update but so many amazing things happened while we were there and I want to share them with you!

The chapter that God has really placed on my heart for China since 2007 is Isaiah 55. For this trip the last two verses really stood out to me: “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree, instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”

So wow we had nine days of craziness, joy, and love. We arrived at Eagles Wings orphanage and were greeted by about fifteen children that could not wait to see us. We played all day long with Si Yan and her friends (many of them were also at camp this summer and it was so fun to reunite with these children. I even got to see Bei Bei- this was the little boy that had an infected foot this summer, I was able to take him to the hospital and watch the Lord really do a healing work. Now he is walking around on his foot fine. It is all healed up and his foot is still functioning!). Okay back to the story, so we played all evening and put them to bed.

The next morning Si Yan, Sarah, and I headed off to the speed train to start our adventure. We did not take a translator with us so it made life really interesting. It actually worked out really well and caused us to bond even more with Si Yan. So we took the train to Xi’an where Sarah got pick pocketed as we left the train station! Thank Jesus that her passport and all the money that had been donated for Si Yan was in a different place in her purse. We then met up with the Vidlers, some very good friends of mine who are doctors there in Xi’an. It was such an encouragement to catch up with them and visit with old friends!

They introduced us to Rowen (a cerebral palsy physiotherapist from Australia). He did a physical assessment on Si Yan. I sat there watching her go through various tests of strength like a very brave little girl, making eye contact with her as much a possible as assuring her she was doing such a good job- and thought to myself “we can’t just leave her here. Why does she have to be so brave for herself? How many doctors has she visited and nothing has changed? We can’t just bring here to this doctor and leave her in the same state. How hopeless that must feel for her-with no one to comfort her”. My heart just broke and I started to cry. She needs a family, medical help would be nice, but even more wonderful would be arms to hold her and love her forever.



After the appointment Rowan was very optimistic. He said that with the way her condition had progressed he could see her perhaps even learning to walk with the proper therapy. Sarah and I were thrilled and got as much information as we could on what needed to be done.

The next day we did a wild game of hid and seek with various prosthetic boot and medical appliance stores. I think we spent about three hours within the span of three blocks trying to find different stores and getting crazy directions in Chinese, so fun. We found some doctors that could make individualized prosthetic foot braces but discovered that Si Yan would need to come back in two weeks to get them fitted and adjusted if necessary. That would not be a possibility as Xi’an is far away from her orphanage and there would be no one to take her back. Sarah thought quickly on her toes though and asked if they knew of anywhere in Zheng Zhou, as that was close to her orphanage and we would be there the next day. They found a place and we were able to get an appointment for the two days from that day. We were very excited!

That afternoon we took Si Yan to see the Terra Cotta Warriors (the 8th wonder of the world apparently). It was really neat and Si Yan really enjoyed it. She referred to the many statues as her “peng you’s” (friends in Chinese). She is pretty much the cutest thing ever and so very smart. She could understand most of what Sarah and I said to her in English!

We said goodbye to my friends and headed back to Zheng Zhou. The next day we met with the prosthetic specialists. God gave us so much favor with them! They absolutely LOVED us! They took molds of her feet and brought up sample boots that had cute pink flowers on them. We were all so excited about it. They were so sweet, they shut down the place and about 5 doctors, some designers, and the head of the whole place took us out to a really fancy lunch. They thanked us for what we were doing for China. I exchanged e mail addresses with the head doctor’s daughter so it will be nice to stay connected with them and maybe build a relationship.

After that we took the bus back to the orphanage. All the children were so happy to see us back. Si Yan showed off her new things and shared some toys that we had gathered along the way. Sarah’s translator from camp this last summer came to visit us and the kids.

That night there was a major dust storm (the biggest one they had had in four years)! Not going to lie, it was scary. It though the building was going to come down on top of us! I kept reciting 2 Timothy 1:7 (the verse my mom taught me to say when I was scared during the night when I was little) and we made it through the nigh. But despite the wind, the next morning (in true Sarah fashion) we bundled ourselves and Si Yan up and went to shop at an outdoor market! It was so much fun and very windy, but a memorable experience for sure!

While we were out we bought treats for all the kids and brought them back to the orphanage. They were very excited and we played the rest of the night.

The next day was goodbye day. We made sure and gave detailed instructions to the manager of the orphanage about Si Yan’s new boots and walker. We taught her all that we had learned about her condition and some practical ways to help her little by little each day. It was really hard because we had bonded with Si Yan so much and really become a well functioning, loving, little unit in the week we had her with us. Leaving her at the orphanage was really hard. Like I said, it is so wonderful that she may be able to walk! God is a god of miracles and hope and joy- and we are so thankful to Him that she may walk! What a life altering event! But how wonderful if we did not have to leave her. That if at each doctor’s appointment she had someone blowing her kisses and encouraging her, and then someone to put on her socks and take her home. This is what we pray for her.

So it was such a blessed and successful trip. We accomplished more in a week than what otherwise may have been done in a month. We had so many moments where God sent us Chinese angles (to help us get on the train, to help us carry everything, to help us find our way, or order a meal). We saw the marring judgment of evil as people looked at Si Yan in disgust, but we also were enraptured by compassion and grace which was not merited.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. We could feel them and saw them in action. We are claiming that Si Yan will walk soon!! We got to love on her and spoil the heck out of her for a week and it blessed us probably more that it blessed her. Pray for a family for her and also that her muscles and bones will be strengthened to walk!

Love you all so much, blessings and grace to you from our Lord and Savior!

~Rose Barnes

Jubilee Dickinson's Adoption Story

Our family has been involved with Bring Me Hope since they first started opening camps up to those outside the Bolt family. Our first camp was in the mountains of Nanchang in 2006, and since then we have in part or whole attended camps each summer.

I (Jeff) cared for orphans, but had no desire to actually adopt. In 2007 my compassion for orphans became a passion for one orphan. In April of 2007 my wife, Lisa, and I began our adoption paper work. On October 17th of 2007 after completing all our paper work, we were “logged in” with CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) and began the second phase of our adoption: “the wait”.

This is where most grow weary and discouraged, as the adrenalin and emotion dies down. The months turn to years and all the while you keep that calling alive which compelled you to this decision in the beginning.

We had asked for a special needs baby with a heart condition and figured we would get our match soon. By the summer of 2008 we were next in line for a match, but because we had requested a baby girl we were being passed up by the many other families behind us who were open to other special needs or older children. We doubted our original desire for a baby girl and wondered if we should we be more open, but the Lord continually gave us a peace to wait.

Finally in September of 2009, I received a phone call from my wife while I was at work, “Jeff, you will not believe who just called...We have a match and her picture will be on your computer in a few minutes!”

Two and a half years and the moment was finally here. With tears of joy and emotions we met our Jubilee for the first time, via two pictures sent by e-mail.

There was a catch however; she had a heart condition known as Tetrology of the Fallot. This is a congenital heart defect that has a series of four problems within the heart. TOF is surgically correctable, but serious in nature. The biggest issue was a large hole in her septum that separates her right and left ventricle. Because of the hole, her body processes mixed blood, with and without oxygen, making her more blue in color.

We did all the research we could, including meeting with our biological daughter’s Pediatric Cardiologist so we could fully understand what we were facing. We felt satisfied that, even with limited medical information from China, we were willing to take the risk and accept our match. On November 20th 2009, my wife and I boarded a plane for China destined for Zhengzhou, which is in the Henan province, ironically where the last two years of BMH camp have been at SIAS University.

When we first saw Jubilee, or at least who we thought was her, we were so excited because she was so pink and healthy looking, but in a moment we realized this was not our daughter. Jubilee came out next, and she was tiny, fragile and blue like a Smurf. Her appearance made both Lisa and I gasp. In fact, the lady running the registry was equally alarmed and kept checking Jubilee to see how she was.

The day went from bad to worse and by the afternoon of the same day we were in the local hospital with Jubilee, who was blue and panting for air. Later in the evening the founders of our adoption agency drove to the hospital and sat with us late into the night. The hospital was primitive and the help Jubilee received was limited yet gave her the ability to come home the next afternoon.

Prior to our leaving the hospital I had spoken with our Cardiologist back in the US and he recommended getting updated tests done while we were in the hospital. This proved to be a life saving decision that gave him the information he needed to tell us that her condition had worsened and he felt we ran a 50/50 chance of getting her home on the airplane alive to the US. We had not been able to file the official documentation yet accepting Jubilee as our daughter and were now faced with a decision as to what to do.

Two days after arriving in China we received a phone call at 5:30 in the morning that my Dad had unexpectantly passed away, just two days after we were losing our daughter we had waited nearly 3 years for. We felt at the bottom and raw with emotion, but God had a different plan.

The founders of our adoption agency were still in China and the four of us met to discuss what to do. Lisa and I told them that we did not feel comfortable playing with a 50% chance of survival, 12 hours on a plane over the Pacific Ocean. So in an act of desperation we hatched a plan to take advantage of a 90 day window that China gives all approved adoptive parents to come to China to pick up their child.

Prior to this decision our friends, Ana and Bill Moody, who are physicians at Philip Hayden Foundation in Beijing, had offered to take Jubilee on our behalf and get her a life saving surgery that would allow her to fly home with us. The problem was that Jubilee was not our child yet. We would have to refuse her adoption and leave her with the orphanage. So we prayed that God would influence the orphanage director to let her go to Beijing under the care of PHF. We gambled that IF, the orphanage would let Jubilee go to Beijing, Bill and Ana could get her surgery in time, Jubilee could recover within the 90 day window, and the local registration official would not send our refusal letter we had had to write to CCAA, we might be able to fly back to China in time to get her and stay with in our 90 day window of travel approval.

November 26th, 2009, on Thanksgiving day, we flew home. We left China a week earlier than planned feeling dejected, exhausted and emotionally spent and without our daughter. We hung onto the hope of a “long shot” plan to come back and get her.

Saying good bye to her was agonizing as the orphanage director took her from our arms, not knowing what would happen to her and wondering if we would ever see her again. We missed our connecting flight in Hong Kong, requiring an eight hour layover for the next plane. Lisa was so spent she could hardly walk through the airport and finally lay down on some empty chairs and went to sleep. In an effort to kill some time I pulled out my lap top and checked our e-mail. In it was the best thanksgiving gift ever. An e-mail from our friend Bill Moody saying that the orphanage had agreed to send Jubilee to PHF, she would be on a train with an orphanage worker with in five days. The first of several hurdles was underway, what a miracle!

The doctors in Beijing examined Jubilee, they discovered she not only had TOF but also a second very serious heart defect. This condition would have guaranteed her death on the plane ride home had we chanced it. Over the next 6 weeks Jubilee received her surgery which gave her a new lease on life. She recovered in record time, allowing us to fly back to China on January 22nd .

We flew directly to Beijing and were reunited with our daughter. We flew with Jubilee back to Zhengzhou to finish the adoption that had abruptly ended two months prior. The registration administrator had held onto our refusal letter, hoping to hand it back to us when we returned to China.

We flew home on February 4th , our 90 day window with China ended February 5th. We serve a big God, and He delights to show us just how big He is.

Jubilee is now thriving at home and gaining weight. This summer she will face her big surgery that will ultimately fix, not only her TOF, but also give her a pulmonary artery and valve. We went to China to save an orphan and came home with our daughter, never to be called “orphan” again!

Hannah's Story up for Best Feature Documentary!

We're excited to announce that "Hannah's Story" is nominated for Best Feature Documentary for the Fallbrook Film Festival!

Check it out: http://fallbrookfilmfestival.com/2010_Awards.html

Bring Me Hope Volunteers Adopt!

In July 2006, the month before my husband and I got married, we went to China with Bring Me Hope as volunteers. The time we spent with our kids made it very clear that adoption was an absolute for us. We actually tried to adopt one of the little girls in our group, but China regulations did not allow that to be possible for us at the time.

While we were in China we had the opportunity to visit the orphanage where the children who came to camp lived. This experience in visiting the grounds and all of the other children just reinforced for us that we would absolutely want to include adoption as a way to grow our family.

Fast forward to March 5, 2010…

As most of you know, John and I have returned home from Ethiopia with our sweet baby Sam. We got home last Friday and today is the first day I feel a bit adjusted. Ethiopia was an absolutely amazing trip. I am however incredibly happy to be home.


Sam is really doing great. John and I smile the second he walks in the room. It has been an amazing journey because he was not very fond of us the first few days we interacted with him :-) He also came off as being a very high strung, aggressive little boy that would not smile. We were really preparing to have our hands full when we returned home with a tough transition. However, he completely changed almost as soon as we took custody in ET.


It is very clear to him that we are mommy and daddy and he absolutely LOVES us!! He is very laid back, laughs a lot, loves to tease us, very playful, and very affectionate. He loves to give kisses (especially to his older brother Kieran). They do fight over toys but working it out...tonight, Kieran counted to three and then put him in time out :-) Kieran is struggling a bit with the transition but if Sam is sleeping, he wants me to go wake him up. So I guess that's encouraging. Anyhow, we just absolutely love him to death!

The Thurman Family

"The only thing I should do is to love her with my whole heart.”

A BMH Camp Translator tells her Story...

I feel very honoured to be here to tell our family’s story in BMH’s summer camp in August of 2009.

My story has three parts. It happened between SiYan, Sarah, and me. Sarah is my foreign volunteer who is very kind-hearted and comes from California SiYan is a very smart orphan assigned to our group from an orphanage in JiaoZuo, China.

SiYan is a perfect girl with two problems; one of which is she cannot walk, and the other is she needs to go to bathroom often like once every ten minutes. So I had to carry her to the bathroom even when I really want to eat my meal or feel tired. When we got to the bathroom, she said to me, “I’m sorry, sister. I must make you tired. You must hate me.” I felt ashamed and answered with tears in eyes, “Not at all. SiYan, you are so pretty and sweet. I want to carry you forever.” When I stayed in bed that night, I said to myself, “I can’t show my boredom to her any more. She stands much more torture than me. The only thing I should do is to love her with my whole heart.”

Then, there was Sarah who loved SiYan so much that she would hug and kiss her every time she saw her. SiYan also love Sarah. She always asked me what Sarah was talking about and wanted to understand her. The last activity of our week together is to write letters. SiYan and Sarah need to write letters for each other, and I would translate these letters. SiYan wrote, “I want Sarah to be my mum.” which shocked everybody.

I really appreciate that I can know Sarah and become friends with her. She is very patient and thoughtful. I can’t forget the most common sentence she would said to SiYan, “That’s ok,” and she would always help me carry SiYan. Sarah and I are very similar, both with a sister and a brother, parents that are teachers, and born in the year of snake, the Chinese Year of the Snake. Maybe there is some connection between us, I thought.

That is my amazing experience which should be cherished forever. Now I’m the BMH club president in TaiYuan, and I feel very thankful to have Sarah, Becca and David in my life. Everything I do for BMH is going well and my life is plentiful and meaningful. I even get to meet Sarah and SiYang again in several days because Sarah is going to see SiYan, and I will go too. WAHOO!! I'm also thankful for everyone who comes to the camps. I love you all!

~Banana