Block 37 - update

The government has started leveling the area where the Block 37 homes stood before the fire.






In the meantime the people who were in the school have had to move out so that classes could resume, they were allocated a lot of vacant land to dwell on whilst the development is finished, but the people have mostly decided to live near Block 37. I think this is due to them being concerned about missing out on their plot of land to rebuild their home.



Here is the size of the plot assigned to the people marked out with pieces of wood:



Please pray for the HOM team.

Fire relief - 2

HOM continues to help the people who were affected by the fire distributing, water, baby milk, baby bottles and diapers to the families in the relief centre. Once again they were able to borrow a vehicle to do this work. Please pray for Sally and the team as they go about this difficult and upsetting work

Fire relief

Sally has just described the desperate need of the people who have been affected by the fire. The HOM team have been giving away spare clothing. Our team members are fantastically generous out of their own poverty.


You can see the conditions the people are living in with six families to a room in this school.

Heartbreaking Suffering

Sally has reported that people in the evacuation centre are in very difficult situation, asking for water and for milk for their babies. It is heartbreaking to see their suffering.

Block 37 fire update

Sally has been in contact once more and has sent these distressing pictures. Block 37 is one of the poorest communities that HOM serves. Fortunately there continues to be no report of loss of life which is amazing considering the devastation, I think that is likely due to the fire starting around 19:45. As you can see many families (Sally estimates 800 families) have lost their homes and all they had. Please pray for them:

Fire

We have a report from Sally that the community that we know as Block 37 has been affected by a large fire, this article suggests 1000 homes have been destroyed, I assume that it is a typo in the article and it means that 5000 people have been affected not 5000 families.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/metro-manila/11/16/09/fire-razes-1000-homes-mandaluyong-city

Please pray for our friends

Medical Prescription

The picture above is Tiribe Sarabia, 26 years old, diagnosed to have dengue fever. Hands of mercy is helping her with the medicines. Her parents are scavengers and what they earned is not even enough for their food. The mother came to the office crying for help. We are praying for her fast recovery so that she can go back to her school.

This is Jayvee Duazo, 5 years old and has a hydrocephalus case. He had a seizure last night and is now confined at the intensive care unit in one of the local hospitals in Mandaluyong. He is one of the patients of Hands of Mercy under the home care therapy. Unfortunately, the family does not have money to purchase the medicines. The mother came to the office yesterday, 5 November, for help to purchase the medicines needed by Jayvee. When we visited him this morning, the mother told us that he is recovering and she thanked us for the prayers and for the financial help that was given to them by hands of mercy. She said if it was not for the help, she does not know what had happen to him.

Hands of Mercy continues to give help to people that are in desperate need of medicine. People are coming to the office for help. Through the Medical Prescription Programme we are given the chance not only to help for the medicine but also to pray for the sick. It is a blessing to know that as we extend our love to these people, we were able to exalt the name of the Lord!

Home Improvement on typhoon "santi"

The pictures above shows the roof relief operation made after the typhoon “santi” strikes to number of families in the community. Families are very grateful that help has been extended to them. Joey is busy with the Home Improvement Programme. Thank you for your prayers and for the UK trustees for the immediate response to the needs.

Message from Sally Escoto

This is Sally and Joey Escoto from the Hands of Mercy Philippines!
I can't believe time is over for the MacDougall's and Alexander's visit. The people from Hands of Mercy Philippines were so blessed during their stay and they have left a very memorable relationship to everyone. The day they left Manila, another typhoon came in, this is called "santi". This typhoon causes damages to the roofs of numbers of the families that are friends of Hands of Mercy including some of the staff due to strong winds. Again, Hands of Mercy came in to the rescue for the roof relief operation. There were 15 families found desperately in need for roof replacement. At the moment construction is simultaneously going on all over the communities. Thanks for the people who continually give towards the relief operation. Pictures above shows the damaged caused by typhoon "santi".

The relief medicine operation is still going on. Just this morning someone came to the office asking help for his child who is desperately in need for laboratories to determine whether the baby has dengue fever. The baby was admitted at the hospital for three days, yet no medicine was given because the parents does not have money to buy the doctor's prescription. Just when I visited the baby at the hospital the medicine was purchased and the laboratory tests were made. The family is waiting for the result for futher treatment. I prayed for the the baby and the family. Also another patient I visit while I was there is the father of the child we used to sponsor, Mr. De Asis. He has a very complicated disease and he is asking help from Hands of Mercy because they cannot afford to buy his medicine. I am so bless to have been given the chance to pray for him and to let him accept Jesus as his Lord and personal saviour.

Damage from Typhoon Mirinae

We have had another communication from the Escotos outlining the damage from the winds of the latest typhoon. The roofs on the homes of 15 families are known to have been damaged and will be repaired under the Home Improvement Programme

Missing posts - Thursday's activities - Staff Intercession

On Thursday afternoon we gathered once more at the Sikap centre for a time of worship with the HOM volunteers. The staff were once again keen to sing the songs Carol and Sarah had taught them on Sunday and they both again helped lead worship.


After worship David spoke once more and after his message he encouraged us to share the peace with each other. As with everything else the Filipinos threw themselves into this with great enthusiasm.

We then had some traditional Filipino food provided by the staff and some cakes provided by us. After this we started to say goodbye to our friends. Most of the staff left, but some stayed on for the evening. I had some work to do with Sally, but the others enjoyed each others company, sang songs together and played games. It was wonderful hearing the sounds of their enjoyment from the office. Once we had finished our work we finally said goodbye to the remaining staff, but they wanted to spend more time with us so they walked us to where we got the Jeepney back to the hotel. It was a sad farewell when we finally flagged down the right Jeepney, Sarah almost missed getting on as she said goodbye to her new friends.

Missing posts - Thursday's activities - Hilaga 2

We were able to walk around the community in Hilaga between the feeding and the small group.

We saw how some of the people of the community lived when we visited the home of one of our volunteers, she had a small room (less than 2m square) with an open window. To get to it you needed to walk (carefully) down an unlit damp passage made by the cramped homes of her neighbours.

But, there has been a significant change in parts of the community since the last time I was there, a group of the people living there were able with the help of a Catholic church to build a new block of flats into which they then moved, during the construction that took two years they lived outside the building site in temporary dwellings.

It was wonderful to see some of the people of the community living in much better quality housing.

Missing posts - Thursday's activities - Hilaga

We went and helped with the feeding at Hilaga on Thursday, here 58 malnourished children get supplementary feeding three times a week.



After the feeding Carol shared a talk on discipleship from the gospel of Mark with the parents of some of the children