Last week’s Night Walk fundraiser was an incredible success! With 166 people walking in 26 locations, there were people supporting orphans in China all over the world! During the walk, we hosted a live stream of two of our locations in China. It was so fun to see the excitement on each of their faces! Some of the kids featured have been coming to camp for five years and are anxious to return!
On behalf of the kids, THANK YOU!
It’s that time of year…NIGHT WALK 2014, has come around and I beyond excited to tell you more. WHY is this year completely amazing?
Oh, and I almost forgot one more reason, they are not only introducing a new T-Shirt but are bringing back 3 others from their “Vintage Tees” collection. So, if you can’t decide on what design you like best, feel free to order all 4 (the “Vintage Tees” collection are limited in number and are a first come, first serve product). 
So, now back to the logistics. For any new people reading this, let me give you a little background. Night Walk is a chance for us to show orphans love. On May 2nd, we will gather together in the evening and walk for an hour, while Chinese orphans walk during the day. Our goal during this time is to get as many people together to raise money for orphan sponsorships. Each walker that signs up (you get a free shirt when you sign up before April 19th) provides Bring Me Hope the funds they need to send orphans to this years summer camp. The more walkers/sponsors we have, the more kids get to leave the orphanage and go to summer camp…the more kids that come to summer camp, the more lives that are changed and get to be advocated for. This is a chance for those who can’t volunteer at Bring Me Hope to be a megaphone for the voiceless and help fund these kids.
What does Bring Me Hope need?
Leaders! They had 31 groups last year…let’s try to double those numbers. If one person from each state would lead a group we would almost be there. Leading a group is pretty simple…it requires getting people together and finding a location, that’s about it.
Walkers! They need people willing to get together with an awesome group of friends and walk on May 2nd. You can walk at a local park, through the city, on a bike trail or at your local school track.
Sponsors! They want anyone that can’t walk or lead to sponsor someone else to walk or buy a T-Shirt.
I want YOU…if you are reading this, you can take part. Click HERE to see more about a walk that happened last year in the Alamo. Visit bringmehope.org to sign up or sponsor another walker or click one of the buttons below. If you are interested in leading or need more information, contact Regina (regina@bringmehope.org).
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For the Kids!
Caitlyn & Bring Me Hope Team
Misha is from Texas.
In 2011 Misha traveled all the way to China to volunteer at a Bring Me Hope camp and spent her time there serving and loving orphans.
Misha brought her love for Chinese orphans all the way home to Texas. In fact, all the way to the Alamo.
Misha didn’t leave her experience behind her in China. In 2012 she participated in Bring Me Hope’s annual Night Walk.
“When I went to China with BMH a few years ago, I fell in love with the people there and the kiddos that came to camp. I want to help, and I’ve found that doing the Night Walk is a way that I can help, right here from home!”
Misha and her friends will be walking for the kids at camp again in just a few weeks. Where will they be this year? The Alamo, of course!
“The Alamo is a very famous place, most people know what happened there and lots of people come see it. Last year people would come up to us wanting to know about what we were doing. We also made some fliers and handed them out as we went.”
You can also walk to support the orphans in China.
Here’s how you can sign up to walk or sponsor a walker: https://bringmehope.org/night-walk/
“The best part of the Night Walk last year was the time I got to spend with my friends, family, and a few others that I had never even met. It was so encouraging to see their support and want to help these kids.”
Wow! What a blessed Night Walk 2012! We are so thankful for each of you for participating! An official Night Walk Recap will follow this post, but we wanted to give you all a little hint into the awesomeness that was Night Walk!
We started the beginning of the Night Walk with a conference call, led by Lacey Scott (Bring Me Hope’s U.S. Operations Director) and David Bolt (Bring Me Hope’s Executive Director). During this conference call we had the opportunity to hear the voices of some of the orphans Bring Me Hope will be working with this summer. We were also able to hear the story of an orphan who Bring Me Hope worked with in China, was adopted, and had the opportunity to go back to volunteer at a BMH Summer Camp! Whoa! Check out the whole call HERE!
People were walking for these little ones all over the globe! Check out some of these locations! More photos up on our Flickr page!
The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas
“This was my 1st “Nightwalk”! I love those littles very much and wanted to help somehow.”
-Misha Barcroft, Alamo Night Walk
Kaweah, California
“This is the fourth annual Night Walk my Mom, Grandma, little brother and I have done. I do it because Bring Me Hope is near and dear to my heart. I would love to volunteer one year and go to China for the summer camps but that hasn’t worked out so Night Walk participation has been a great way for me to help.”
-Joyce Campbell, Kaweah Night Walk
Birubi Beach, Australia
“We had a beautiful day for our ‘night walk’, and it appears that we will raise about $2000 so it was a great success.
We were joined by a small band of faithful, and all creatures great and small. We had our dogs, horses, camels and God even sent two humpback whales to ‘walk’ with us.”
-Steve Odger, Birubi Beach Night Walk
Tallahassee, Florida
“We typically have service and study on Friday nights, so we just incorporated the Night Walk into our Friday service. I led our congregation in by giving a presentation on our Bring Me Hope experience in 2010 and the importance of the Night Walk. We set up luminaries (paper bags with candles in them) to make a path around our campus and basketball courts, about a quarter mile circuit, and started walking! A couple of our guys walked with guitars and sang songs the whole time. I did not know that our own daughter, Eden, would be featured in the conference call!”
-Kevin Robertson, Tallahassee Night Walk
Night Walk is coming up on May 18, 2012. That’s just a few weeks away! We can’t wait to show our support of these kids during this awesome opportunity. If you haven’t yet heard of Night Walk, keep reading to find out more!
Want to skip the reading and sign up now?? Head over to the Night Walk sign-up page!
This year, our Night Walk and camp theme is “Love Like an Ocean”. For many of the volunteers who have spent time with the orphans in China, for many of the families who have adopted these beautiful children and for many hearts that long to bring these kids love and hope… an ocean separates us. But love, deep like the ocean, binds us to them. We love them through the love He has given us… and He gives us a love that surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:18).
Essentially what Night Walk does is it gives us another opportunity to show this “love like an ocean.” We have the opportunity to tangibly help these children who we love. We have the opportunity to share the kids’ stories with our friends, family, and sometimes complete strangers as we walk. At the beginning of the walk, we even get a chance to be on a call with some of the kids we are directly helping with the Night Walk. What a cool opportunity to be a part of something so huge! Be sure to share about it with your family and friends and let’s have thousands of people across the globe together for one cause!
For more info and to sign up, CLICK HERE! Sign up by Friday, May 4, 2012 and get an awesome official Night Walk t-shirt to sport for the Walk!
One hour. $30. The opportunity to change lives forever. Bring Me Hope Night Walk 2012.
If you walked in Fallbrook on May 19, you probably noticed a guy with a video camera recording every step and doing interviews. That was Michael Bower, and he has finished editing the video from the Fallbrook night walk.
The clip is 10 minutes long, and reveals a lot about why the volunteers are looking forward to this summer’s experience. There were also quite a few people at the Fallbrook walk who are not going to be traveling to Beijing but still wanted to contribute to the cause, and it was neat to see that they recognized the value of what Bring Me Hope is doing enough to want to join in for an evening.
Check out the video below, and tell us what you think.
— Tom Pfingsten
David just posted more photos from the night walk on the main Bring Me Hope page. It’s fun to read the stories from all over the world. Make sure you see the photos from the crew of flight 8219. Also, there is a recording of the conference call where you can clearly hear the kids saying their names. It’s definitely worth checking out. Any thoughts you want to share can be posted here at the blog as a comment.
— Tom Pfingsten
It’s not often that you see fifty people walking down Main Avenue in Fallbrook on a Saturday night, let alone handing out glowing green bracelets and taking pictures of each other. I imagine the scene was similar in every community around the globe where Bring Me Hope supporters gathered to raise money during the night walk on Saturday. That the cause has drawn such far-flung support during its two years of existence is a testimony to the dedication of its staff, the passion of those who volunteer and, above all, the eternal significance of what is being done in the lives of Chinese orphans.
The night walk raised $15,000 in donations, motivated about 300 volunteers to hit the streets in 12 states and three countries, and paid for 60 orphans to attend camp this summer. (Of course, that is just the number that were paid for by this weekend’s fundraiser, not the total number of kids who will be at the camps.) Volunteers walked in the U.S. and Australia while a group of orphans walked in China. There was even a troupe of flight attendants walking the aisles of a plane bound for the Middle East, Bring Me Hope Director David Bolt said during the conference call preceding the walk, although the details of how he convinced them to participate in mid-air are still a mystery.
Following are some images from the May 19 night walk, taken by myself and Michael Chan, who designed this blog.
I stumbled across some footage on YouTube today that shows the orphans participating in the night walk on Saturday. It appears to have been posted by one of the young Chinese translators, and as of this post there were eight other videos of the event on the same profile. Click on More from this user to see the others.
It’s a little strange to watch, because it was midday in China when we walked here in the states – I assume it was daytime in Australia, too, for our Aussie teammates – but it’s neat to see some of the kids.
If you find or post other videos of the night walk, please let us know so we can link to them.
— Tom Pfingsten