Our Both Hands Project Page

 

www.bothhandsfoundation.org/eric-and-angie-williamson.aspx

Okay so we finally have our account set up with Lifesong/Both Hands. There is an amazing woman, Aimee, who is helping us and she set everything up for us over the holidays! What a blessing she is to us. This is our project page where people can go to get information on how to pray, donate or volunteer for our project. We also have a facebook page that Aimee set up for us. It is here:

www.facebook.com/events/274224755968997

So we are all over the social media thing now. I’m so high tech I don’t know what to do with myself now.

Where Hope Lives…Generally Speaking

Okay so here is some of the factual information I promised you a couple posts back. Hope lives in China.

She lives in the province of Chongqing (pronounced, “chong-ching”). The blue arrow. We will go there to get her, then from there we will have to go to Guangzhou near Hong Kong, for our consulate appointment and to obtain her Visa before we can leave China with her. As of now we have no idea where we will be flying into...Beijing or Hong Kong or some other city. (Thanks to Julie for this map.)

She originally was in the city of Qianjiang (bottom right in pink) in Chongqing, but now we believe she has been moved to the city of Chongqing (bottom left in pink) in the province that bears the same name. The two cities are anywhere from 5-7 hours drive apart depending on who's driving, the specific route and weather conditions. The city of Chongqing is the largest city on the planet. Seriously, no joking…largest city on earth. (Again…Julie…thanks for the map)

Thus ends your geography lesson on the general whereabouts of Hope. 

Both Hands Project

Finally we have a widow and a date for our Both Hands project. A dear colleague of mine connected me with a sweet lady named Bernice. She is a wonderful deaf woman that lives in Ensley and is very excited about our helping her. She was a victim of the April 27, 2011, F5 tornado and a tree fell into her home while she was sleeping. Because Bernice is deaf she had no idea sirens were going off or that she was in any kind of danger. Her insurance took care of the part of her roof that the tree fell on as well as the inside ceiling but did not do anything to help her walls in one room where the storm did water damage. In that particular room decades of wall painted wall paper are literally peeling off her walls. We are going to fix her walls in that room as part of our project. We will be putting up wainscot or bead board of some sort and then painting that. The other major part of the project will be painting her home. We will have to pressure wash the front of the house to get the old paint off a wood porch and then clean the siding off before we paint. We are going to paint the porch, siding, trim, bottom brick part of the home and her concrete stairs and porch landing.

Here is Bernice and her home!

 

It is a huge undertaking and we are going to need a lot of volunteers; but that is Eric’s punch list not mine. We are writing letters to Lowes, Home Depot. Marvins and Sherman Williams to ask for donations for supplies. We just got all or important information to Both Hands and they are setting up a web link and account in our name for people to donate money as a tax-deductible donation. We are hoping to get the letters to the local stores out this week and then begin contacting our volunteers and letter writer’s as well. The date for the project is February 11, 2012! So we only have about 5 weeks to get everything in order!!! I am so thrilled to be helping out not only a widow but a member of the deaf community as well. As a sign language interpreter who has dedicated her life to this people group it really warms my heart to be able to serve the deaf community in a whole new way.

Christmas and Chinese Secrets

More stealing from Julie and I’m testing it out now. She has shared with me the ancient Chinese secret of her blog. Here are a couple Christmas memories I wanted to share.

Hope on the Christmas tree!

Hope’s Elf made an appearance this Christmas Eve. As did Eden’s elf.

Here they all are on Christmas Eve waiting for Santa to take them home!

Cookies and Milk for Santa and a letter from Noah.

The Williamson Christmas Tree

Blog Updating

I am finally figuring out how to do cool stuff on this blog. Since I have nothing interesting to say currently, I am going to launch into giving as much factual information regarding Hope's whereabouts as I can. I am borrowing a ton of stuff from a good friend of mine's blog, who is leaving tomorrow for China to go pick up her little girl! It feels more like cheating and copying catting, but it's good stuff and I hadn't thought of posting any of it. So big thank you, Julie! I hope you are flattered and not offended that I have pilfered stuff from your beautiful blog!

Care Package Contents

I wish I had some spectacular news to share today, some update on where Hope is or just any update at all on her, but I don't. So I will blog about the care package I am sending to her. As stated, I have the lovies, the blanket and the rattle which are all from Angel Dear and are cashmere soft. They are the pink and white zebra pattern. I found a "My First Family Album" from Gund that is soft sided and has 12-4X6 photo sleeves in it. Plus, it has a 2X2 window on the front that I put Hope's picture in. I have printed out, labeled and laminated 12 pictures of the family and one 2X2 of Hope. I asked my good friend Brandi to translate family our titles: Mommy, Daddy, Sister, Brother, Grandma & Grandpa, into Mandarin. God bless this woman who quickly returned the translation the next day! So all our pictures are labeled, in Photoshop of course. I also bought 2 disposable cameras that I hope they will use to take some pictures of Hope between the time they receive the package till when we pick her up. I'm just trying to get any history captured that I can. I also have a heritage book I had made that has 88 questions in English and Mandarin that inquire about the early days with Hope. I had wanted to get it to someone who maybe had known her since she was born or at least for a good deal of time. But since she has made an orphanage change I don't know that we will find anyone that would know a great deal of her history. So I am sending a letter with the package, that my beautiful friends Brandi and Frank are again willing to translate for me, that just speaks to my intent with the book and the unexpected move. I just pray that someone who knows her well will somehow be able to help us with the book. Brandi and Frank did a such a sweet thing for this care package, not only did they translate the letter but they re-wrote it so it would be culturally appropriate and not offensive. I love this couple. So I mailed it today...$40.00 and some change and it should be in China in 6-10 days...ish. Lily usually emails Lifeline as she receives packages so hopefully we will hear from her in a few weeks saying that she received the package. That's all for now.

Guardian Angels Are Real

I know that one such angel is named Jennifer. I received a call Wednesday, November 30th, at 8:14 in the evening from Jennifer Bowen from the UAB Cleft and Craniofacial Center. I had called the center and left a message inquiring about what bottles I should send in our care package, if any at all. God love this precious lady who called me back on her own personal time, at night even! I tell you she is an anwered prayer! She immediately put me at ease letting me know that she would personally make sure that I knew all that I needed to know BEFORE we go to get baby Hope. She said she would help me come up to speed on bottles, and lip care and feeding and all those things that are making me insane because I cannot find any information on cleft care as it relates to a toddler! There is this huge vaccum of nothing as it relates to taking care of a child whose lip was not closed at 3 months and palate soon there after. I'm thinking it has to be out there somewhere but not even Eric could find it. In all my spare time raising 3 kids I'll be working on getting that remedied. But back to wonderful Jennifer!

She told me all about the cleft clinic and told me that she would help me get in touch with a feeding specialist there who would be able to tell me what I can feed Hope, how I can feed Hope, and all that feeding a toddler with an un-repaired cleft lip and palate entails. She also told me about the "clinic" days they have where they see tons of kids in the clinic. She said I might like to come to clinic one day and just watch everything. I think bringing Noah to clinic would be a fabulous idea. I hope to try to help desensitize him a little before we bring Hope home. I think if he could see children in different stages of the healing process it would help him. If he could see a baby with an un-repaired lip...even better! She said she would send me some resources for Noah, to help him understand and adjust.

She was so reassuring and funny and helpful. I'm thrilled to have this resource! She let me know about a study that just came out that they had done. They did a comparison with regards to speech delays and issues with children who had their repairs done at 1 year (normal amount of time if born with cleft in a country that can repair it) and with children who had their repairs done at 2 years old (children like our Hope). What they found was that there was no significant differences at all with regards to speech issues or success. The clinic is very concerned about children not being ridiculed about speech issues and are on top of that issue, it is very important to them. Which is awesome!

Jennifer was just so reassuring and calming. Can I say that enough?! After talking with her, I finally felt like I could really handle all of this. I know that I would have handled it without knowing Jennifer and the cleft clinic, but now it is going to be sooooo much easier. Resources people! Always search out your resources!