Principal: Shirley Kung (龔秀麗)
Vice-Principal: Connie Lau (劉錦群)
Guangxi is a beautiful land of Bagui. Numerous spectacular mountains bears rich mineral resources. Thousands of elegant rivers formed endless marine resources. The subtropical rainforest weather bred large amount of precious animal and plant resources, especially abounding fruits and is hailed as “the hometown of fruits”. What is more distinctive are the peculiar karst landform, the splendid cultural relics and historical sites and the rich ethnic customs that make Guangxi’s tourism resources uniquely charming. Guangxi’s current population is 49 million, with one-third being Zhuang race. It is a multi-ethnic place and an important national hometown for overseas Chinese.
HeChi City resides in the northern Guangxi, with a population of 3.8 million. DuAn County is
at the southern HeChi City, near the junction of NanNing City. It is surrounded by mountains and the farmlands, which mostly grow corn, soy bean and a bit of rice, are shriveled. Other than the merchants running businesses in the city, the lives of the farmers in the countryside are very impoverished.
In this destitute and remote area, God established the Herald Gratia Children Village for the poor children. Originally, the children village is an office of the town government, which is an abandoned courtyard house. After several months of renovation, it started to operate in Feb, 2008. God also brought sister Shirley Kung from the U.S. to here. 27 children were admitted in the first batch. After a semester, another 33 children were admitted. According to Principal Kung, DuAn County never lacked orphans. At any time throughout the year, there are children who need to be admitted and the staff have to visit and assess their conditions. One cannot stop weeping when seeing the plights of the children. Many wear ragged cloths, without shoes, thin, weak and unable to attend school. But after entering the children village, in less than a month, you may not recognize them again. This is another tears shedding moment.
At this Chinese New Year, I went, as planned, to DuAn County to train the caring sisters there. At that time, I hired 4 caring sisters. Because the children village did not have the facilities installed yet, I conducted classes for them in my hotel. With thanks to God, they have teachable hearts and learned joyfully. This time when I went to the children village, only one of the caring sisters left. The other three welcomed me enthusiastically. Now they are all experienced sisters.
Sept 27, 2008 is the inauguration of HeChi Herald Gratia Children Village. God picked this day for us and we should be happy. Really, we are truly grateful and happy. Everyone carried an exciting heart to look at God’s actions. When we stepped into the door of the children village, we can see, from far away, the horizontal signboard: “The Herald Gratia Children Village of HeChi City”, which is quite notable. On the right-hand side was the door to an office which was decorated with lights and colorful stripes. A desk was set for guests to sign in. The photographs of the children and the staff were hanged on the left-hand side, together with the children’s wonderful and eye-catching drawings. Everywhere was clamorous. The biggest attraction was that the children lined-up on the two sides, boys in light blue upper garments and deep blue pants, girls in pink upper garments and blue pants, clapping and cheering loudly “Welcomed, welcomed, enthusiastically welcomed”. This sight brought back the memory of the SanMing Children Village. I could not help but hugged every child, saying: “I love you. You are awesome!”. They were really awesome. In as little as 4 months, they learned courtesy, charity and humility. The learned singing, dancing, reciting poetry, giving speeches and following regulations. Looking at their performances, and recalling their lives before coming to the children village, there really had been a huge change, big like between heaven and earth. I quietly prayed for them.
Other than the chairman of the board’s earnest encouragement and the Principal’s report, I was impressed by two person’s speeches. One of them was the secretary of the local Civil Affairs Bureau. He told the children to remember three things: firstly, they must remember that they are Chinese; secondly, they must remember that they are DuAn persons; and thirdly, they should never forget all the kind-heart persons who helped them.
The other impressive speech was from American doctor Chen, who came to attend the ceremony. He told the children that he grew up in an orphanage and got the chances to receive education and then higher education. He went to the U.S. and became a cardiologist. He encouraged all the children to study hard and make progress to create bright futures for themselves. His tearful presentation moved everyone. We hoped that our children understand self-love, self-respect and treasure this wonderful opportunity and work hard for their future.
Another touching incident was seeing the love of brothers and sisters who came from Hong Kong. I heard that there were 36 volunteers on Sept 23. They helped in every possible way with cleaning, rehearsals, preparing flowers for guests, etc. Another team of 15 members came on that day to attend the event. They came in a rush and left in a rush, all to show love and support. Those from the U.S. were not falling behind either. Many directors of the children ministry came. All three members of the Xiao-Ling Zhong family, Shu-Yi Lee-Wu, her sister Shu-Hua, Deputy Director Hu and two of my friends (one of them from came from Canada) had come. On the inauguration day, another team from San Francisco and ten persons from New York also arrived. The auditorium was completely full and very lively.
Thank God for His endless grace!
Thank you for all your supports!
Thank you for all your prayers!
Dorcas Hua 許佩文
2008.10.11