Our first visit to the school

We traveled from Beijing to Zhengzhou by train.  We arrived early in the morning and met Eva, our local consultant.  Eva then took us to Kiafeng by taxi and checked into our hotel.

Next we took our first trip to the school. When we first arrived we were greeted by the orphanage director, Mr. Wang. The director and a few of the teachers took us on a tour of the school and orphanage.  The facilities were extremely clean, and bright. The children at the school were very excited to meet us. We were greeted with clapping hands and a song meaning “I Love China.”

It was great to see all the children.  Some of the children had made great improvements since Echo’s last trip.  One young girl after a year of therapy is now able to walk!  Other children have significantly increased their vocabulary.  Mr. Wang mentioned they only have one table in the classroom for the children to study on and they needed more toys that increase their hand motor skills.

We decided the children would benefit from having some small desks to work at and returned to town to look for small tables or desks.  We found five new desks and had them delivered to the school that evening.  We also purchased some water color pens, play dough and some baby formula.  We also found some nice uniform shirts and had the Echo logo put on them for the children to wear at school.

Tonight we will be honoring the director and the staff at a dinner banquet.  Tomorrow we will return to the school to deliver more supplies to the school and Friday we will be looking at other schools we hope to be able to fund in the future, with your help.