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.