Our family grows

A happy life beckons to every child who joins our family. Two children, from tragic backgrounds, are the latest members to be taken under our wing and their sadness is being replaced by smiles as the Happy House works its magic on their young lives.

Two year old Ricky was brought to us by his terminally ill mum who, with nobody else to turn to, wanted to be sure that he had a secure future,

As her health is deteriorating Ricky's mum has been struggling to maintain even the most basic living and on bad days she and Ricky had been going to bed hungry.

Uncle Billy said: " This made her feel so inadequate and she wanted  to secure Ricky’s future in case of her incapacitation.

'' Ricky is now in baby class and well settled.''

Mama Sue said it was so difficult for the mum to leave her little boy and it was a very emotional parting, but she was determined to do the best by her child.

Mercy, aged eight, has come to us for care and protection after the breakdown of her family which left her vulnerable. She has been through so much but has soon become one of the girls and is enjoying life in her new home.

Together again

Our family sometimes provides shelter in a storm for families going through a difficult time.
This has been the case for the families of Manuela and baby Leah. 
Ten-year-old Manuela , who was living with her widowed dad, came to us in October when there was a crisis in the family situation.
It has taken weeks to sort out but now they are together again.
Uncle Billy says: It has been a traumatic seven weeks for them both but all's well that ends well.

 "Manuela was reunited with her father in a very emotional ceremony. 

"Another major step was made for baby Leah who came to the stability of our family after her mum died in childbirth.

"Her  dad and her family are over the grieving period and can now look after her, loving and caring for her.

"As always the Happy House likes to be the bridge over troubled waters and this is tangible proof.

"Both families are full of praise  and  thanks to be to  Mama and Papa for the love, care ,support and encouragement they have received ."
Easy way of fundraising
Doing your Christmas shopping with Amazon, Tesco, Sainsbury’s M&S , Argos or many other big stores? You can raise money for our Happy House whenever you shop with them and 3000 other stores by using the  fundraising website, easyfundraising.
 It won’t cost you a penny more and everything you buy will raise money in the form of a donation from the trader you are shopping with. 
So please  help us by shopping via this link http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/watamuhappyhouse
One of our friends who is doing her shopping this way says: "Once you have initially signed up, whenever you go to the shopping site there is a bar at the top to click on - it is yellow and turns green when  you have clicked. 
"After that whenever you go to a site that you have previously visited the bar is green and so there is a donation. It does say it can tale 30 days for the donation to come through."

Festive fun on the farm

 Festive family fun saw lots of visitors to Farmer Parr's Animal World on Saturday, when the Fleetwood attraction was also the setting of the Blackpool Gazette's Christmas Bazaar.
And a stall at the fair gave us a chance to to showcase the work of Mama Sue and our charity at the Happy House.
Our UK voluntary coordinator Elizabeth Gomm handed out dozens of our leaflets to visitors with our Seek out a Smile kids tombola bringing them to our stall.
There was a great deal of interest in our family and we hope that it will result in a chance to speak to more local groups on the Fylde coast and several children took leaflets which they were going to take for their teachers.
Elizabeth was very grateful for help from Pauline Royle , and to Janet Simpson and Sandra Foulkes for popping in to see if their help was needed, and to Paul and Andrea Manders for helping her to pack up.
It was a lovely day, with lots of Santa smiles - Santa and his real reindeer and their donkey friends are now in their amazing Christmas grotto at Farmer Parr's in the run up to the big day, meeting children and taking their Christmas orders.They are certainly worth a visit!
The event for us was about raising awareness, not money, but we came away with £51.
Thank you to everyone who had a go at our tombola, including the two children pictured who were very good customers.

Kids club, by Zawadi

Zawadi  and Selina

Today, Zawadi is our Happy House blogger with her story about one of the most important events of the week.
Every Tuesday, when we come home from school we wash and change our clothes and then we go out to play for a few minutes and then we will be called that it is time for Kids Club.
We say a word of prayer and we sing any song that we like. We we have finished we ask who has something to say - auntie, uncle, teacher, who has something to say?
Then we say Happy House Kids do we have any visitors, so we can appreciate them. And then we ask Happy House Kids, do we have a birthday today?
 If it is yes, then we sing for them the Happy Birthday song. It is wonderful.
Thank you very much.

Christmas is a coming ...

Thanks you to everyone who is sending parcels for our children ready for Christmas.
We are just so lucky to have such very good friends, all around the world, who end us so many necessities we just can't get easily in Kenya, plus lovely clothes and gifts for our children.
With so many parcels arriving in the run up to Christmas, it is impossible to send pictures and thanks to everyone. 
You can see from the latest postal delivery, our children are in for a very happy time.
Thank you all from all our family.
And just for information, the last posting date for Christmas parcels sent from the UK by airmail is December 6.
Christmas Bazaar
Elizabeth will be be having a Happy House stall to raise awareness of our work at the Blackpool Gazette's Christmas Bazaar - a family event at Farmer Parrs Animal World, Fleetwood, from 10am today.

Sew far, sew good

Learning new skills is important to all our children and thanks to a very generous donation they'll soon be learning to sew.
We will be able to buy materials needed, bring in someone teach them, as well as getting the sewing machines that we have, but were unable to use because they had parts missing, repaired and serviced.
Mama called in a local repair man who came to the Happy House to work on them.
She hopes that, in time,  any of our kids, girls or boys, who want to try their hand a sewing will be able to learn.
Mama, thrilled with donation, said: " When I went with the kids and bought the material they chose for their new rooms, and the lady at the store gave me a bag full of off cuts that she had been saving for me. I thought I should get these children sewing, then the news of the cheque arrived.
" Then I had a man here who is making me mattress covers and he has made a lovely job of them. Dave saw him later he asked if I was happy with his work, and did we have any machines at Happy House, Dave said yes, he then asked, do you have a teacher? So this all seems meant to be."
Thank you to the lovely lady who has made the possible.

The green, green grass of home

Goodness gracious, we've got grass!
It's been a long time coming, but the grass sown and planted on Uncle Frankie's Happy House Field of Dreams is finally coming good.
When Frankie Asher, who won everyone's hearts in the three months he spent volunteering with our family, left for home in September you could barely see a hint of green on the the wonderful football/sports field he so generously funded and worked so hard to clear, level and plant.
Growing grass is never going to be easy where there is so much sun and not much rain, but it is really doing well.
How rewarding it is for Frankie and for all the kids and staff who helped him, to see it looking so good.. 
And for once Mama is quite happy to let the grass grow under our feet!