To all our dear friends and supporters.

 

The House of Joshua Children's Home has now been open for almost a year and we are

so grateful for your help in making this miracle possible.

 

Thank you for standing with us throughout the year as we have sought to share God's love

with people in need, especially in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan. Total donations received

by us for this appeal have now topped £13,000.

 

When we look around us we see a world that is so much in need of healing, so much in

need of the "Son of Righteousness" (change of spelling deliberate!)

 

We pray that you may know His peace that passes all understanding this Christmas

Autumn 2013 Newsletter Published

Read all about it.......

Get our latest newsletter here

Typhoon Haiyan Relief Update

The total donated by our supporters to our Typhoon Haiyan relief appeal has now topped £10,500. A huge thank you to everyone concerned.

A second "Compassion In Action" mission team, including staff members from the house of Joshua left for Northern Cebu and the Bantayan Islands today to distribute aid to remote areas that have had little or no other support since the typhoon struck the Philippines a month ago. A further mission trip to Leyte is being planned for January.

Compassion In Action is a joint initiative involving several churches and other organisations, including Lifenet Children's Foundation, in Cagayan De Oro City. It was set up as a direct response to the urgent need to provide practical assistance to victims of this devastating storm.

Relief On The Way For Typhoon Victims

Since we first appealed for funds to provide aid to the victims of  "Typhoon Haiyan" we have received over £6000 in donations. Thank you to everyone who has been so generous!

An initial payment of £2000 was sent out to our mission partners last week to fund the purchase of medical supplies, 40 sacks of rice, noodles, canned food, cooking oil and other groceries to be distributed to the needy on the island of Leyte, which has been so badly affected by the storm.

14 volunteers from Lifenet Children's Foundation and various churches in and around Cagayan De Oro City set out this evening in a very heavily laden Jeepney which has been loaned for the trip. The fuel has also been sponsored. They will pick up some more volunteers and also pick up another truck loaded with further supplies along the way and should arrive in the town of Ormoc tomorrow.

The plan is to set up a feeding station and cook hot meals for up to 1,000 people, treating injuries, providing counselling and moral support as well as much needed packs of rice and groceries.

A further outreach trip is being planned for the first week of December.

In the meantime the House of Joshua has also been asked if they can take in 20 out of 70 orphans who were evacuated from a children's home in Tacloban before the storm struck. Their home has been totally destroyed and they have nowhere else to go.  If we are to be able to help them we urgently need to recruit more sponsors to cover teh cost of looking after them.
 If you would like to know more about The House of Joshua and our sponsorship program please click here.

The first of several boxes of groceries 

Bags of donated clothing too  

2 Tons of rice

Jeepney loaded and good to go

Typhoon Relief

The full scale of the devastation in and around Tacloban City caused by Typhoon "Yolanda" (International name Haiyan) is now beginning to emerge.  Relief supplies of food and drinking water are already arriving as the international relief effort gathers momentum. Here in the UK the Disasters Emergency Committee will launch a public appeal tomorrow.

Many of the staff at our sister charity, Lifenet Children's Foundation are familiar with dealing with the aftermath of a typhoon having spent several weeks providing food and water to flood victims after typhoon Sendong ripped through Cagayan De Oro City in December 2011.

In conjunction with a number of other mission agencies, churches and charities, Lifenet are organising a relief aid team to go to the island of Leyte in the next few days to help with the aid efforts. They will be starting in Omroc and then looking to get out to the more remote areas that the bigger international aid agencies have not reached.

We have already received a number of donations and have sent out an initial £2000 to help facilitate this.

If you would also like to support them financially you can do so using the Paypal Donate button on this site (please use the comments box to quote the reference "Typhoon Relief" so we know what the money is intended for.

If you are a UK Tax Payer please also click here to get a gift aid declaration - you can email it to us using the contacts button on our main website. (note - an original signature is not needed on teh Gift Aid Declaration - you can just type in your details)

We have absolutely no operating costs so every penny given will be spent on bringing help and relief to the typhoon survivors who are in such urgent need.

The big aid agencies will probably spend about 3 - 6 months getting the situation under control but they will then hand over the ongoing work of recovery and reconstruction to the Philippines Government. In Cagayan De Oro 20,000 people had to live in a massive tent city for almost 2 years before enough new houses could be built to accommodate them all. It is likely to take quite a bit longer in Tacloban where the numbers are increased ten-fold.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” —2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (ESV)

The devastation caused by typhoon "Yolanda" (international name Haiyan) has made headline news around the world and a number of people have been in touch with us, concerned to know if everything is okay.

The storm passed about 100 miles north of Cagayan De Oro city so, although there was heavy rain and strong winds there was no impact on the House of Joshua.

The main area of the country affected is in the central belt of islands known as "Visayas", particularly the islands of Leyte, Samar and Cebu.

As many as 4 million people may have been affected in some way, with many having been evacuated from low lying coastal areas. It is now thought that over 1000 people may have died and anything up to 100,000 made homeless by the storm. 

The Red Cross has launched a disaster appeal - details here. http://www.redcross.org.uk/typhoonappeal/

Staff from our sister charity in the Philippines, Lifenet Children's Foundation, are organising an aid relief response - watch this space for more information in the next day or two.

In the meantime our thoughts, our love and our prayers are with the Filipino people

When we visited the House of Joshua back in April this year the boys were just beginning to enjoy playing with a big box of  Lego that we had shipped out in one of our  aid containers.
However they didn't really know what they were supposed to do with it and consequently just made solid blocks of bricks covering the base plates.
We showed they how to make different designs, building and vehicles and they soon got the idea.

Now they are getting really good at it as these pictures taken today show. Clearly we have a house full of inventors and designers, which just shows what tremendous potential these boys have for their future. All they needed was pointing in the right direction to get them started.

With the closure of Aid to Hospitals Worldwide it might be difficult for us to contemplate shipping another full container load of aid. And indeed without them it would be hard for us to actually source enough equipment to fill a container. Nevertheless we keep on chipping away at making a difference in the Philippines.

The need doesn't go away. Children still need education. Families still need help to climb out of the poverty trap and to achieve independence. People still need to know that God cares about them and their situation

Yesterday saw us loading 11 boxes (well 10 boxes and a package actually) full of teaching equipment, school books, educational resources and medical equipment to improve the lives of people in Cagayan De Oro City.

It may not be much (about a quarter of a ton and a cubic metre) but, to quote the Tesco adverts, "Every little helps".

Some of this equipment will go to the House of Joshua children's home. Some will go to a local school and some to Barrangay health centres and community hospitals, many of which are badly underfunded and ill equipped.

Shipping like this is costly, but much of what is in these boxes is simply unavailable in the Philippines. Even where it is available it is out of reach unless you have the money to buy it.

Well, Well - It's a Bit of a Bore

In the West we tend to take water for granted. We turn on the tap and there it is, clean, healthy and fit to drink; but is is certainly not so in many parts of the world.

There is no shortage of water in the Philippines, it falls out of the sky on a fairly regular, albeit seasonal, basis  and most urban areas have a mains water supply that works most of the time; although sometimes the flow drops to a trickle or stops all together when there is a power cut at the pumping stations.

However the tap water is not entirely safe to drink. Even in urban areas it often falls short of accepted safety standards and around 4000 people die every year from drinking contaminated water. Consequently most people, who can afford to do so, opt to buy bottled, purified, drinking water  but it doesn't come cheaply.

When you have a house full of children you get through a lot of water. In the case of the House of Joshua it was costing over £100 a month just for drinking water, as well as tap water for laundry, cooking, washing, toilet flushing and the like. And not to mention watering the kid's vegetable patch!

Thanks to a couple of generous donations we have been delighted to fund a well boring project. The drilling team hit the water table at just over 50 feet but when down another 30 feet to ensure a reliable supply even in the dry season. It doesn't look much but fitted with an electric pump and storage tank, as well as a filtering system,  this well should provide all the clean, safe, water that the house needs at negligible cost.

Spring Newsletter

The weather in England may not feel much like "spring" right now but our latest newsletter (Spring 2013) is definitely hot stuff.  Read all about it here

House of Joshua Open

It's been just over a month since the first children arrived at the House of Joshua and some of them have taken a  while to adjust to such a dramatic change in their circumstances.

Previously, although they had not committed any crimes, these children had all been housed at the local youth jail simply because their was nowhere else for them to go, having been orphaned or abandoned by parents unable to care for them.

In the jail they received no education and were kept locked up in cramped and uncomfortable conditions for long periods of the day. They slept on the floor, wore tattered and ill fitting clothes, had their heads shaved to prevent lice. They were malnourished and many had skin infections such as scabies. Now they have new clothes of their own , their own beds (with a mattress, sheets and pillows), toys to play with and regular nutritious food. They have enjoyed their new freedom to run around outside and are excited to start learning to read and write.

At the present time there are 10 children in residence with more due to arrive shortly. Eventually the home will house up to 75 children but how quickly that happens will depend on enough people coming forward to sponsor children. If you are interested please click here to download a sponsorship pack.

If you can't afford a full sponsorship but would like to contribute towards the running costs of the home please click here for Bank Standing Order Form (UK bank customers only) and Gift Aid Declaration.

Overseas supporters please email us for further details. (This link will take you to the email form on our website).

note - faces have been blurred for safety of  the children.

Fundraising Means More Tough Questions For Church

Those lovely people at Horringer Court Community Church in Bury St Edmunds are at it once again - fundraising for the House of Joshua.

In 2012 they raised over £16,000 through various events and activities to help fund the completion of the building, which cost just over £90,000 in total.

A quiz night in January 2012 raised over £500 on the night with further donations following as a result.

On Saturday 23rd March 2013  they are once again  hosting a charity quiz night for us. This time the intention is to raise enough money to sponsor at least one child for a year at the House of Joshua.

Anyone can enter a team of 4-6 people at a cost of £5 per head including a ploughman's supper (bring your own drinks).

To obtain tickets phone the church office on 07594334218 or email admin@hc3church.co.uk

Note this quiz night was originally due to take place in January but was re-scheduled due to adverse weather conditions.

Change of Destination

On December 4th 2012,  couple of weeks after we shipped our last container of medical aid out to the Philippines, the island of Mindanao was hit by a category 5 tropical storm "Typhoon Bopha" (locally known as "Pablo") which caused a tremendous amount of damage and the loss of around 1900 lives, mainly in the provinces of Davao Oriental Compostella Valley.

This is the second deadliest typhoon ever to hit the Philippines and world-wide the worst natural disaster of the 2012. Over 200,000 homes were damaged and 25% of the country's banana crop was destroyed. Damage to property and infrastructure has been estimated at over US$800

At the request of the recipients, Philippine Relief And Development Services (PHILRADS) we have now managed to get the container of medical supplies and equipment  redirected to the port of Davao, close to the disaster area, for distribution to various medical centres in the affected region.

PHILRADS are a major disaster relief and development agency whom we have worked with on a previous aid project and we are delighted to have been able to help them in this way.

Over £100,000 worth of medical aid 

(bandages, dressings, needles, hygiene supplies and the like) 

now bound for Mindanao disaster region

Opening Next Week

The House of Joshua children's home is all ready to go.

Subject to one final piece of paper  (an Occupational Permit)  being released the first children will be moving in next Monday. 7th January.

It's an exciting time and represents a new start for these children, some of who were orphaned in the typhoon floods in December 2011. Others were abandoned by parents unable to cope or unable to afford to keep them. Some have been rescued from a child trafficking network uncovered in a recent police operation in Northern Mindanao.

The House of Joshua will give them a safe home and a supportive community where they can grow and learn.

Would you like to help secure a future for these children? Then download a sponsorship pack from here.