Back in the UK

As you may have guessed we are back in the UK, safe and mostly well.

I went directly along to the organ marathon to show my support to John Alexander in his fund raising. It was great to have a quick chat with Jane and family.

Whilst we have been away there was a documentary on BBC2 about a bus driver who goes to Manila to try his hand at being a jeepney driver, we've not watched it yet, but it has been recommended to me by the Alexanders who have seen this for themselves first hand, watch it if you want a more in depth understanding of life living in Manila:

Toughest place to be a bus driver

Thursday afternoon

We spent talking with the team and saying goodbye. It is such a sad time. These people who do so much for their neighbours really lack self confidence and self esteem. We tried to encourage them by trying to get them to see how we see them. From our point of view they are an extremely committed and talented group of people.

We said our goodbyes in dribs and drabs as the team went back to their respective homes and were left with a small group of the team members and Sally and Joey. It was hard to say goodbye especially with all that is going on in the Escotos lives at the moment. I would like to thank Joey for spending so much of his time with us taking us around the communities:

Another visit

We visited another family after the small group on Thursday, this is some of the de la Cruz family with Carol and the girls, and look who has made appearance behind them Kay:

Organ marathon

Here is a message from David Alexander vicar of St Thomas' church in Stopsley, John is David's son:

Dear Friends,

I am writing this to all friends of St Thomas's whose email address I have.

This Friday (25th Feb) our organist John is performing a marathon of hymns on our church organ. A hymnathon? Or orgathon? Not sure, what it should be called, but he is going to play all the hymns in our hymn book (533 in all!). He will be starting at 5pm and keep playing till he finishes - which he estimates will be about 5am on Saturday morning.

This is in aid of Sally Escoto, the Director of Hands of Mercy - the charity we support in the Philippines. Unfortunately she urgently needs an important operation and as there is no NHS in the Philippines that will cost money - money she does not have, nor any of the workers of Hands of Mercy who all live in poor communities in the massive slum areas of Manila. She does so much work amongst the poor and we want to help her at her hour of need - and by helping her help many others also.

Would you be able to pop in for a time to the organ marathon and support this cause? You can stay as long as you like. You can even sing along if you wish! And please sponsor John with a gift to help pay for Sally's urgent medical care in the Philippines.

Thank you in anticipation of your support.

God bless
David

Small group

After the feeding we held a small group, Carol led us despite feeling unwell (she has a cold) and spoke on the Psalms:

Feeding at Hilaga

We went to another feeding this morning, this time at Hilaga, here is Sarah helping once more:



The centre at Hilaga is rented and has an upstairs where a lot of children go to eat, fortunately it was cloudy today so it was not too hot, last time we were here it was stifling:

Last day

We fly out early tomorrow morning (that's Friday for us) and have quite a busy schedule today so I might not get many more posts done here (I've just got up and am waiting for the girls to get ready). If I don't get stuff posted I will update finally once we are back in the UK and have had some sleep.

Being out here really brings into focus the challenges the people of the communities face on a day to day basis. I could say that being here gives me an understanding of the problems the people here face, but I think that would be facile as you can only really appreciate what someone else's life is like if you live it yourself. Frankly there are situations that on the face of it seem hopeless, but then there are the faithful team members getting alongside their neighbours and helping them as best they can with the resources we provide from the UK and sometimes from their own pockets. It is humbling to behold. As our charity's strapline says "Restoring hope to the needy through love and compassion".

I come away with mixed emotions, I am sad to say goodbye to the team, I am worried for them because of the uncertainty that they face and I feel determined that we should do more to help. May God guide the team here, the UK and Filipino trustees and our supporters to do just that.

Thank you all for the messages of support and encouragement we have received whilst we have been out here.

More disabled therapy

As Tara and Sarah had an interest in disabled therapy, Tara already works with children with special needs and Sarah would like to do art therapy when she is older, we did some more disabled therapy this afternoon. This is a little girl Sarah worked with, she had problems with her memory:



Here are the team, they do a fantastic job, in trying circumstances, they have my utmost respect:

Updates

I managed to borrow the images off another camera so these are out of sequence, these three are the youth service:

Tara and Sarah leading worship with Andrew:



One of the games Tara organised:



The young people seemed to be having a good time:



I couldn't take these photos because I was boring the men's group to sleep in another area of the church:



And this is another look at how tight that space I got stuck in was, so no more Winnie the Pooh jokes ok?

Scavenging

We saw this little girl who had been scavenging, picking up recyclable materials that had been thrown out, to sell at the recycling centres. She must be only about 6 years old, children have to grow up quick in the communities here:

Sponsored child

This is our sponsored child who we visited after the feeding, her name is Joana Marie:



She only has a year left of high school and wants to study computer programming at college, so I finally have a daughter I can be proud of, only kidding girls (boy am I gonna pay for that later):

Our first feeding programme

This was our first feeding programme visit to a place I had not visited before Ginhawa. So for those of you who give money for feeding this is what we spend it on, here we feed 51 children under 5.

The food today was made from pasta and hotdogs in a sauce, Here is Carol helping dish it out:



Sarah doing the same:



The lady feeding the child is Veronica and is part of the Cabeyaan family we visited yesterday, the baby is hers:



Unfortunately there had been a death in the community and a wake was being held a bit further on from where the feeding was taking place. The daughter in law of the man who had died is a supporter of the feeding programme as she has a larger income than her neighbours, so she pays for all of the food for one day a month. She had also made a huge chocolate cake and that is what Sarah is handing out:

More silliness

Another trike another post for Rob, sorry Matt I am looking out for things that you might find amusing, but I haven't seen anything pizza or rugby related yet:

Sponsored family visit

We went to see one of the families we sponsor after staff devotion, the Cabeyaan family live in the Busilak district. Unfortunately by the time we arrived it was noon and the sun was hot. We climbed into the upper room of a building you see on the right, it was stifling:



Fortunately I didn't get stuck this time although I could stand on the floor below and put my head through the opening and speak with the people in the room, stuff here is not built with people my size in mind, here are the girls with Melba in the tiny room before we had to leave as we were melting:

School

This is a school we walked past in the afternoon where a lot of the Child Sponsorship children attend:

Photos

If I put up all the pictures we took after staff devotional I would be here all night, the Filipinos certainly like to have there picture taken. Here is (almost) the full team (a couple of people were missing due to ill health):



It felt like we were at a wedding with the number of photos that were taken, here are some of the younger people, who the girls spent the afternoon with today:



If you ask a Filipino to take a photo of a group of you after taking the first picture they often say "wackkeee", which I thought was Tagalog for "Cheese!" or something similar, but what they mean is Whacky and the idea is you pull a funny face, this is me and Joey Escoto doing wackkeee, I think Joey wins:

Staff devotional

The HOM staff gather together to worship on a Tuesday. Carol gave the talk based around James and how we need faith in the face of adversity.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him. James 1:12

The staff and I thought she did a magnificent job. Mina who is pictured with her below did a grand job of translating:

Disabled therapy

As I have said we went to visit the disabled therapy programme today. This takes two forms, therapy based in a purpose built centre and home visits. HOM partners with the local city council and another charity to provide, physical, occupational and speech therapy to children in the communities of Mandaluyong. They treat 500 children in total, most of whom are not associated with HOM. We visited the centre first, the man in the white shirt runs the centre and the ladies in yellow are HOM workers:



This is Tara helping with physical therapy:



This is Sarah helping with an autistic boy, he had to draw shapes by following dotted lines, colour them in and then cut them out, to try to develop his coordination skills:



This girl is Leia, she is 13 years old, although she looks less then 8 years old, you can see how emaciated her arms are from lack of movement, her legs were worse. A HOM staff member is assigned to her and visits once a week for an hours physical therapy. This therapy has been taking place for 3 years:



Our second visit was to a family who has two disabled children, one with cerebral palsy and another with autism:



The team do an amazing job with very limited resources, may God bless them and the children they serve.

Stuck

When we visited one home today, I looked at the space I had to crawl through to get into the home and said "I don't think I will fit". I was right. I got stuck on the way up. I eventually freed myself by twisting and removing my small rucksack. The team thought it was hilarious so they took my picture on the way down, you can see how tight it was:

Wendy and Ben Hur

OK today we went to disabled therapy and I thought we would do the odd stuff first.

This is the logo for Wendy's, we think Wendy is scary:



And this one is for Rob and my parents, this is the name of the local Mayor, I wonder if he does much chariot racing?

Sunday afternoon

We split up in the afternoon. I went and helped in the men's group, whilst Tara, Sarah and Carol went to the youth service. Tara was leading with Sarah being her beautiful assistant. They had bought matching dresses for the occasion:



The youth service was a big hit, the biggest hit in the men's group was me destroying a plastic chair by sitting on it. No picture available (un)fortunately. Here are some of the young people in the youth service:



And here are Tara and Sarah leading worship:

Sunday worship Filipino style

Church is pretty much an all day affair over here, we arrived early at the main church building (there are several smaller churches dotted around the communities) so that the girls could practice the songs with the worship group:



The decoration in the church has changed and it has got a lot brighter:



This is a picture for the Malcolm's, Nanita says "Hello!":



During the service the team are encouraged to pray for each other, there is a lot of need here and the team find it easy to pray for their fellows:



Sarah took this picture of one of the little ones, Everyone say "Ahhhhhhh!":

The building of one home

This is not a very good picture for a very good tale: This house belongs to a lady who lost her home during the flooding, hers was one of the few that did not withstand the winds and was completely destroyed. When we visited back in 2009 she was living under plastic sheeting and HOM could do nothing to help her, because the government wouldn't give permission to rebuild her home. Shortly before the fire happened that permission was granted, when Joey Escoto went to buy materials for the project there weren't enough for him to buy, so he put the building work off, that evening the fire struck. Joey would have bought all of the supplies and left them at the lady's home if he had been able to buy them and they would have been destroyed.

Here is the new home HOM built for her after the fire. It doesn't look like much by western standards, but I am sure it beats live under a plastic sheet:

Block 37

We used this blog last year to show the aftermath of a devastating fire in Block 37 and the subsequent help that HOM had provided with the rebuilding. I have tried to frame the shots below to show a before and after of each side of the community (there's that tree again):







You can use the building in the background as a reference point in this one, so you can see how much works has taken place:

It is quite a strange place sometimes

This is a man riding on the roof of a trike, I was in a trike behind trying to take a picture because I couldn't believe it, I'd made a joke earlier about doing just this, I didn't think anyone would do it:



You'll see this tree again, but this is a close up, it is decorated for Christmas: