Meanwhile Back at the Building Site

While trustee Andy Conroy has been playing with a boat in the Bay of Biscay conctruction work has been pressing on apace at the House of Joshua building site.

The foundations have now been dug and concreted and the 34 support pillars for the ground floor have been formed. The next step will be to fill the gaps between the posts with concrete blocks to form the walls before installing the first floor support joists and then making the pillars for the upper storey.

This second stage will cost around £10,000 and we will be sending out the money for that within the next few days so that work can continue without interruption.

Biscay Busted!

'White Sands' leaving Plymouth, 15 May 2011 bound for Spain.

Following his sailing experiences in the Bay of Biscay Andy Conroy writes:-

"Well we have done it – completed a 645 mile crossing of the Bay of Biscay in a 45ft sailing yacht from Plymouth to Bayona in North West Spain.

Our original plan was to depart from Falmouth and sail to La Coruna but a favourable weather window saw us bid an early farewell to England having decided that, given the forecast wind direction of Force 3-4 Westerly turning North or North Westerly, it was a good opportunity to get past the notorious Cape Finisterre with a full strength crew.

Along the way we saw glorious sunsets and schools of Dolphins playing in our bow-wave. We saw beautiful sunsets, a myriad stars at night and the lights of passing ships. Looking at all the beauty of God's creation around me I wondered how anybody could believe it all got here by accident! We motored for hours in flat calms and glassy seas, sailed fast in stiff breezes and faced a force 8 gale with 4 metre waves off Finisterre.

We shivered through cold night watches and flying spray and we basked in warm sunshine. Running a 4 hourly watch keeping system (4 hours on deck managing the boat, steering, adjusting sails, navigating and then 4 hours off for eating, domestic chores, resting, listening to the weather forecast, etc.) it was hard to sleep with the ongoing noise and motion of a yacht at sea, especially in rough weather, with crew clambering about on deck, winding winches amidst waves crashing, gear rattling and occasional radio announcements.

Early one morning we collided with a large plank of wood and dodged several others – probably part of a cargo lost overboard from a ship – fortunately it didn't do any serious damage. At one point during the gale on Friday 20th May we were capsized by a giant wave and the boat’s cockpit filled with water. Another big wave could have seen us in serious trouble yet 7 hours later we sailed into Bayona harbour in a gentle breeze and warm evening sunshine – truly the adventure of a lifetime.

To quote one of the crew, “Sailing is a sport that asks a lot of questions”. We answered those questions with courage, team spirit, with determination and with faith, as well as our combined skills as yachtsmen. Personally, in a moment of danger, it also asked me how I felt about the possibility that this could be the last day of my life on earth. I responded that I was not afraid because I was at peace with God. If you are reading this today permit me to ask you the same question - 'what if this is the last day of your life here on earth?' Would your response be the same?

We learned a lot about ourselves and despite the hazards and privations of life at sea in a small yacht we had an absolutely brilliant time.

Personally I have achieved one of my life-long ambitions to undertake a serious long distance ocean sailing passage but the greatest achievement of all for me was to raise over £1400 (including Gift Aid tax rebates) towards the cost of building a home for orphaned and abandoned children in the Philippines. With a donation of just £10 buying over 100 bricks that should make some serious inroads into the building costs!

So I would like to say an enormous ‘Thank you’ to all my many friends, customers, family members and other kind sponsors who have contributed so generously to this splendid result."

The prize for the ‘Guess The Mileage’ competition goes to Mrs B Rowe of Bury St Edmunds, who with an estimate of 650 nautical miles was the closest to the actual distance sailed of 645. She wins £35 in Argos vouchers, which have also been donated to the cause.

Although the mileage competition has now closed you can still make a donation to the House of Joshua project by clicking the Paypal button on this page or by sending a cheque to our office address. Every single penny donated will go to the House of Joshua.

Meanwhile, out in the Philippines building work is pushing ahead and we are just about to release another £10,000 for the next phase of construction. For more information on the project please visit our website www.conroyrendoncharity.co.uk

To see some pictures from Andy's trip please click here.

And They're Off

After months of planning and training the Yacht White Sands sets out today from Plymouth bound for Bayona Spain.
Amongst the crew of five is one of our trustees, Andy Conroy, who is raising money for the building of the House of Joshua. Already over £1300 has been donated by way of sponsorships.
Original ports of departure and destination were to have been Falmouth and La Coruna but the latest weather conditions have encouraged a slight change of plans to take advantage of favourable winds.

Bon Voyage White Sands!

To find out more or to sponsor Andy please click this link.

2011 Spring Newsletter

Read our latest newsletter here

Building Commences at House of Joshua

At long last, after more than two years of planning, fund-raising and applying for permits building work is properly under way on the House of Joshua site. When complete the house will provide a secure and loving home for up to 28 orphaned and abandoned children.

We have just donated £10,000 to the Lifenet Children's Foundation (the Philippines charity responsible for building and running the home) to pay for the foundations. In all the first phase of construction will cost about £40,000, of which we have raised just over half. If you would like to donate please click on the Paypal button on this site.

 Digging foundation holes by hand

 Steel reinforcing rods tie support pillars into the foundations

 Wooden scaffolding shows the size of the building 

and will support shuttering whilst the support pillars are formed

Making up the steel rebars that will form the cores of the support pillars

Concrete 'Hollow Blocks' will infill between the pillars to form the walls of the house.

Still Stuck With Tax Exemption

Following our previous posting  ( A Strong Piece of Paper) we have submitted all the relevant paperwork to the Philippines Department of Finance only to be told that, although we have the endorsement of the Bureau of Customs, without also the endorsement of either the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) or NEDA (National Economic Development Agency) there is no legal basis to grant our request for tax exemption on the shipment of tools and medical equipment that would bring help and relief to many thousands of Filipinos trapped in a cycle of  poverty.

Unfortunately DSWD and NEDA cannot endorse our application because not all our beneficiaries / aid recipients fit the exact criteria for one or the other of these agencies (i.e. NEDA doesn't deal with charities and DSWD doesn't deal with District Health Centres). We fall between the two stools!

What can we do? Is there nobody who can make this possible? Must the poor always remain poor or will someone intervene on their behalf?

It seems that piece of paper is as strong as ever, and just as elusive!

A Very Strong Piece of Paper

Few of us would describe paper as being strong but just one piece of paper is sufficient to hold up a 40ft shipping container and almost 8 tons of much needed medical equipment (ranging from syringes and needles up to nebulisers, autoclaves, wheel-chairs, hospital beds even a kidney dialysis machine), various tools and educational resources that we are trying to ship to the Philippines to support the work of several Barangay (district) health centres, a community hospital, a school for children with disabilities, a church that works in poor communities and two organisations working with street children.

That particular piece of paper is the permission to import this vital equipment into the Philippines without us or our beneficiaries incurring substantial charges for VAT and Import Duties on the shipment that, quite simply, neither we nor they can afford to pay. And we cannot dispatch the container until we get it.

We have been trying to obtain this exemption certificate since last October and we have had to delay the shipment three times as a consequence. We have incurred over £300 in fees to get the documentation necessary to support our application for duty exemption 'legalised' by a Notary Public, The Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Philippines Embassy in London - all of this in order that we can give away a FREE gift to help the poor and needy - a gift that will improve the lives of anything up to 300,000 people.

One of several nebulisers, a stretcher and walking aids

for children with disabilites - all waiting for shipment.

We had a lot of fun on Friday taking a lesson with year five at Horringer Court Middle School - talking about life for street children in the Philippines and our plans for the House of Joshua children's home.

They asked a lot of really good questions about the implications of living rough on the streets in poverty as well as about bugs, creepy-crawlies, snakes and the like!

This forms part of an ongoing plan to develop cultural links between the school and the House of Joshua so that the children can learn about life in other countries. It will also form part of the middle school's enterprise project - to raise money for charitable causes.

Later in the day the children did some more work based on our talk, which they were able to share with parents who came into the school in the afternoon.

Here's a couple of the beautiful posters that they made (the pictures are a bit fuzzy as they were taken on a mobile phone).

If anybody else in the Bury St Edmunds area would like us to do a talk please give us a ring or send us an email

An Amazing Year- Ahead and Behind

What an amazing year 2010 turned out to be!

We have just had our annual general meeting. The Trustees Annual Report made exciting reading. During 2010 our income went up by an astonishing 73%. Grants made to various beneficiaries, including our school sponsorship program, were up by about 10% and over £12,000 has been set aside for building the 'House of Joshua' children's home (construction work is due to begin in earnest on this project very shortly).

The first of our University Students graduated in 2010 and we have another two due to graduate this March. A further four students are currently engaged on university degree courses, with several more younger children also able to attend school thanks to their generous sponsors.

We were able to supply books, computers tools and medical equipment that enabled a significant number of people to learn new skills, find new ways of earning a living and improve their health. Many lives have been changed as a result.

None of this would have been possible without the help of our many friends and supporters. A huge thank you to every single one of you!

If 2010 was an amazing year 2011 looks to be even more so, particularly with the dispatch of a 40 foot ships container of medical aid bound for Cagayan De Oro City and Camiguin Island Province in early March. We anticipate that the equipment we are supplying will directly impact the lives of many thousands of people as we help them to access affordable medical care and improve the general health of the local inhabitants.

We hope and pray that this container will be the first of many.

You can read the 2010 Trustees Annual Report here

Crossing Biscay for the House of Joshua

In May this year one of our trustees, Andy Conroy, is planning to sail across the notoriously dangerous Bay of Biscay in a 45 foot yacht, in company with friends, to raise funds for the House of Joshua building project.

If you would like to sponsor Andy, or just to find our more about his trip please click on this link.

BISCAY OR BUST

There's a competition too - correctly guess how many miles for the voyage and you could win a prize.

Andy looks pensive during crew training session.

An awful lot of ropes to learn (and pull).

Yacht White Sands in harbour