House of Joshua Getting Started

The plans have been finalised and the House of Joshua building program is about to get under way.

The first step is to fence the site and to raise the level of the part of the plot that the house will actually stand on by about one metre to reduce the risk of flooding. Then the foundations can go in. If possible we want to get this first stage completed before the rainy season begins in July / August.

The whole project will cost something like 5 million Philippine pesos (about £ 70,000 at current exchange rates) so we have some serious fund raising to do.

When complete the House of Joshua will provide accomodation for up to 28 orphaned and abandoned children who currently live on the city streets or who are housed elsewhere in inappropriate facilities like the local jail.

If you would like to support this project with a donation you can do so safely online with Paypal

Land For The House of Joshua - Video

It was exciting for us yesterday to actually walk over the land for the House of Joshua Children's Home, in company with the architect, Susan, and try to envisage the building on the site at Canitoan.

The land is just over 1200 square metres in area and the house (a two storey building comprising some 600 square metres of floorspace) will occupy about a quarter of it facing eastwards.

We also got to look over the draft plans and to see an artists impression (above) of what the finished building will look like.

Here's a short video clip of the land. You can get an idea of the scale of it from the people in it.

On The Recieving End

It is always exciting for us to be able to help people in need by sending them tools and equipment that they can use to better their lives and to assist others. It has been even more exciting to spend a few days in the Philippines, "on the receiving end", and meeting with the people who have been the beneficiaries of that aid.

Yesterday we visited the Procare School for children with disabilities and saw first hand the teachers and children using the toys, books, computers and mobility aids that we had provided for them.

books at Procare 'special school'

Today we went to Nehemiah House, a residential home for girls rescued from prostitution, and again met with both the staff and the girls (age 7-18) who live there. They were so pleased to show us the things that we had shipped out to them last November being put to good use in rebuilding young lives.

sewing machine in use at Nehemiah House

But the most exciting thing of all was for us to be here in the Philippines when the wheelchairs that we had packed up and shipped a few weeks ago (see the blog post entitled "Speedy Wheelchairs") were delivered to the place where we were staying. One chair will be taken to Procare in the next few days and the other is for a little boy crippled by polio. We had also packed a load of children's clothing in with the wheelchairs by way of padding.

Some garments were immediately taken to a very poor family living a bit further up the street. Within an hour we saw the 9 year old daughter skipping down the road in her new dress. This evening we handed over another big bag of clothes to a church who are undertaking a medical mission in some tribal areas in the mountains tomorrow.