Just a few days ago, I received a letter from a mother in the Philippines. Her name is Erlana. Her one year old boy, Al, is very sick. He was admitted at the Philippine General Hospital on January 11, 2009. He was diagnosed to be suffering from malnutrition and cardiomyopathy.

Cardiomyopathy is a serious disease in which the heart muscle becomes inflamed and doesn’t work as well as it should. Al needed to undergo continuous medication which his parents could not afford to support, as they are a low income family, a fisherman. Their earnings are barely enough to pay for one meal a day.

Each day, each week, each month, many children die in the Philippines. This is not because the doctors are unskilled or incompetent. These children die because they are poor and their families cannot afford medicine and treatment. It was heartbreaking reading this letter. More often than not the endings of these stories are not so happy. Right now, I don’t have much money to donate however I will try my very best to help.

I do hope I can make people aware of how trying the lives of these children are. There are no words or pictures to describe the depth of poverty these children live with every day. No one has a choice in when and where they are born, they simply must survive as best they can. I am now asking, in fact I am begging and praying for a miracle that somehow, someway, a donor, a gift, a moment, and saving grace comes and saves these children.