http://www.hopepacks.com/news/blog en jhania@elimcs.org Copyright 2008 2008-09-05T20:28:00-05:00 http://www.hopepacks.com/site/hope-in-peru/ http://www.hopepacks.com/site/hope-in-peru/#When:20:28:00Z In late August 2008, 7,000 HOPE Packs were distributed in Peru.  Some of Elim’s staff were given the opportunity to go to Peru and give HOPE Packs to children in poor, rural areas.  Below is a short video of the children receiving this important gift of school supplie that were assembled by Elim’s adults with disabilities.  Look at the impact that these gifts have on the children who receive them and think about how God uses people with disabilties to serve so many! HOPE Packs is doing a great work throughout the world! Please tell others about HOPE Packs and the work that adults with disabilities can do for the Lord.  And remember, it is through HOPE Sponsorship that these gifts can continue to be given and adults with disabilities can have meaningful work!  Become a HOPE Sponsor today and help equip adults with disabilities to change the world!     2008-09-05T20:28:00-05:00 http://www.hopepacks.com/site/in-our-own-backyard/ http://www.hopepacks.com/site/in-our-own-backyard/#When:16:51:01Z Recently we had the priviledge of sending HOPE Packs to Children’s Hunger Fund (CHF) in the Chicago Area. CHF distributed the HOPE Packs to a community of children in South Holland, IL through River Oaks Community Church. It is such a wonderful thing to see that the work that Elim’s adults are doing are touching the lives of churches and communities in our own back yard! Check out the link below...you don’t want to miss it! School supplies are really important to all children trying to get an education! Whether they are children in our own back yard or across the ocean, there is a need and HOPE Packs is meeting that need. Thank you for your support!  And please, if you have not signed up to be a HOPE Sponsor yet, do it today!  It truly has a double impact, affecting not only the lives of children receiving school supplies, but also blessing adults with disabilities striving to serve God and others everyday! Thanks so much! 2008-08-27T16:51:01-05:00 http://www.hopepacks.com/site/joy-in-serving-anhui-cleft-healing-home-china/ http://www.hopepacks.com/site/joy-in-serving-anhui-cleft-healing-home-china/#When:14:46:01Z The Anhui Cleft Healing Home continues to be a huge success thanks to over 100 volunteers, sponsors, and staff.  We had originally said that we would only house 10 children at a time but we are having a hard time saying no to a child in need of the Cleft Home care.  So what can we do but hire more staff and buy more cribs?  Right now, there are 16 cribs at the cleft home.  The most recent children are from an orphanage in another province.  The dedicated nannies from this SWI traveled 14 hours by bus just to take these 3 children to Anhui.   One child we are calling Tyler just turned 8 months old and weighed less than 5 kg.  No matter how hard the orphanage tried, they just could not help this difficult feeder thrive with his cleft.   He was immediately rushed to Anhui Children’s Hospital Intensive Care Unit where he stayed for a week getting nourishment and rehydration.  I am happy to report that Tyler is no longer critical and was moved to the regular floor at the hospital.  We are working with a cleft & craniofacial pediatric clinical nurse specialist and a dietician who works in the pediatric ICU to develop a plan to help Tyler gain weight.   I cannot wait to see his first smile! The final piece of news I will share is that Becca, one of the first graduates from the cleft home is now being fostered in the big city of Hefei with one of the nannies from the cleft home who fell in love with her.  Since the nanny works during the day, the grandmother is taking care of Becca while the mom works.   Here is a photo of the group grocery shopping.  Can you tell Becca is spoiled rotten by this family? The mom is in the white dress, Grandma in the black top, big sister in the t-shirt pushing Becca.     Thank you for your support! 2008-08-12T14:46:01-05:00 http://www.hopepacks.com/site/bob-marsh-and-carl-fletcher-arrive-in-el-salvador/ http://www.hopepacks.com/site/bob-marsh-and-carl-fletcher-arrive-in-el-salvador/#When:15:49:00Z From Bob Marsh and Carl Fletcher (from SHINE FM 89.7), traveling to El Salvador for the HOPE Packs Program: BOB: We got in at about 11am last night safe and sound and with all our luggage.  The hotel is pretty nice, not exactly roughing it.  In fact, the computer I am using is in a public area on the second floor.  No one has cell service as of yet.  The plan today is to do food distribution with Convoy of Hope and to practice our gospel presentations.  Orientation is this morning, I should know more after that.  I will try to keep you up to date each day as much as I can. CARL: We landed in El Salvador around 8:30 local time and we’re all getting settled into our hotel.  It was a long day of travel but the team of 20 people all made it in with only a few lost bags. We’ll be going through orientation tomorrow morning and we begin working in San Salvador in the afternoon.  It’s hot and humid, and they drive a little crazy down here. Please keep Bob, Carl, and our friends from Global Aid Network in your prayers as they share the gospel in El Salvador and spread good news through the HOPE Packs program. Please pass along this news to your friends, along with an encouragement to tune into SHINE FM 89.7 for regular updates and to stop by www.hopepacks.com to help out. 2008-07-26T15:49:00-05:00 http://www.hopepacks.com/site/hope-packs-bless-china/ http://www.hopepacks.com/site/hope-packs-bless-china/#When:16:14:00Z Below is a message from our friends from Love Without Boundaries who have recieved 50 HOPE Packs in the past few months!Hello,I thought you might like to see the backpacks that you donated in use in China!  This little girl is moving into foster care with one of the nannies from our home.  You can see that she has already had her surgery and is well healed.  These pictures were taken on a shopping outing with the foster family.   Isn’t it cute the way she is carrying her own bag?  It looks like they are using it as a diaper bag. I have finally gotten all but three of the fifty backpacks you so generously donated, to China.  In fact, 9 are leaving on a jet plane the end of July J.  Half have gone to our Anhui Cleft Healing Home and the other half to our Heartbridge unit in Beijing.  The supplies in the bags are so greatly appreciated! Thank you again for putting these together, it wasn’t easy to organize but it was well worth it.  I hope you and your clients who assembled them will enjoy these pictures of a little girl who has benefited from your generosity! Sandi GlassCleft Healing Home CoordinatorLove Without Boundaries"Every Child Counts"www.LoveWithoutBoundaries.com 2008-07-16T16:14:00-05:00 http://www.hopepacks.com/site/welcome-to-the-new-website/ http://www.hopepacks.com/site/welcome-to-the-new-website/#When:17:26:00Z Welcome to the new HOPE Packs website. I won’t inundate you with all the wonderful ideas swirling around in my head right now. We’re just all really excited about where God has taken us with the HOPE Packs program so far. Not to mention, I’m excited that you’re here, checking it out.For now, though, I want to share some brief background on this whole thing. For almost forty years, Elim Christian Services has been serving adults with disabilities. There are many challenges involved in serving adults with disabilities, and one of our biggest is simply this: Do we challenge our adults with worthwhile activities, or do we engage in nursing care that simply takes care of their most pressing needs? Elim believes that all people have a purpose and place in God’s kingdom, and that we are all called to support them in pursuit of God’s purpose. That means we must provide meaningful and challenging opportunities for our adults, which is exactly what Elim is doing with the HOPE Packs program: we’re challenging adults with disabilities to bless children in need by assembling HOPE Packs of school supplies.When Elim adults first assembled HOPE Packs of school supplies two years ago, they did a fantastic job. Our adults had been tasked with assembling HOPE Packs by partner ministry Global Aid Network to be distributed to people in other countries. The adults diligently put their efforts into assembling these kits. As always, they completed the job right on time and as requested by the ministry.But the ministry was used to volunteers assembling these relief kits, and wanted to make sure that Elim’s adults with disabilities had put together all the kits correctly and completely. So, they made arrangements to put one last item in each kit to do quality control.And they found mistakes.That’s right, among the 23,000 kits that Elim’s adults put together, they did find mistakes - two, to be exact. Yep. Two mistakes. Elim adults had put an extra eraser in two of the supply kits. They called us up, told us about the quality check, and enthused "We have never had any group do a job as well as your adults did!"What an incredible blessing to hear how Elim’s adults could be EXCELLENT at meeting the needs of others. This was the first step in realizing the powerful potential of HOPE Packs. And that’s what we intend to share with you here, exactly what your impact has been. Today, over 30 HOPE Sponsors are committing two acts of kindness with every single gift: blessing a child in need by giving work to an adult with disabilities. If you’re sponsoring already – thank you. If not, please start today – you’ll be a part of such wonderful new opportunities!Keep checking back here for more reports and news about the HOPE Packs program. 2008-06-27T17:26:00-05:00