Join one Infantry – Defend our Angels in Rags.

IT WAS LIKE  CLARION TRUMPET CALL – WITH THE RISING OF THE EARLY MORNING SUN  SHINING OVER THE RUSTY TIN ROOF OF OUR SLUM KITCHEN SCHOOL.  BEFORE SUN-UP REALLY .  THEY WERE ALL THERE.STANDING, SITTING, CANES AND WALKING STICKS ,  BUT ALL THERE.  WE HAVE COME TO ANSWER THE CALL.  

YOU DON’T NEED ANYONE ELSE.WE ARE YOUR INFANTRY, FIRST INTO BATTLE,   WE WILL COOK AND FEED OUR HUNGRY CHILDREN – AND THEY ALL BROUGHT PLASTIC BAGS OF THEIR OWN FOOD,  WHATEVER LITTLE THEY HAD IN THEIR SHACKS TO SHARE WITH THE CHILDREN. 

WE HAVE COME TO RESCUE  OUR KIDS. NEICES AND NEPHEWS AND NEIGHBOR KIDS.  THE HUNGRY ONES. 

THEY WILL NOT GO HUNGRY EVEN ONE MORE DAY . – THEY WILL NOT GO IGNORANT – THEY WILL LEARN TO COUNT AND READ.  TO WRITE THEIR OWN NAME.  GOVERNMENT HAS  CLOSED OUR KINDERGARTEN BECAUSE OF THIS VIRUS 19 INFECTION.– THAT’S FINE.  BUT OUR KIDS ONLY HAVE A  FEW DAYS OF BEING YOUNG.   DAYS WE NEVER HAD IN OUR OWN YOUTH …WE WON’T LET THESE PRECIOUS DAYS GO TO WASTE.  

AND THE POLICE CAME – OF COURSE TO HELP – DO WHAT THEY COULD – MAKE SURE THEIR OWN PARENTS DIDN’T SLIP AND FALL DOWN – OR ANYTHING …    AND TO RUN THE FEW STEPS TO THE FRESH MARKET TO BUY SOMETHING, IF ANYTHING  WAS MISSING, JUST LIKE THEY DID YEARS BEFORE WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG, BEFORE THEY GREW UP – PUT ON A POLICE UNIFORM.  

AND THAT’S THE HOW OUR KINDERGARTEN SCHOOL SLUM KITCHEN OPENED –  ALMOST FOUR WEEKS AGO.  THE SCHOOL KITCHEN, W ITH A BIT OF LEARNING ALSO.  

Just before dawn  / four weeks ago today /seven of them  gathered in front of the slum kindergarten school kitchen - senior folks  - of respectable years – seven  of them – alumni of the original class / - true  warriors – dressed in battle /combat garb  of their Sunday best –  that’s what you wear when you go to war isn’t it.  Dressed as they were for their own  first day of kindergarten school of forty years ago .  They were hungry that day also as the children of today – thanks to Covid 19.  Didn’t have much to eat at home.  Were truly poor.  Their dads worked in the pig pens and their moms washed the entrails.  Not nice work, but it put food in the table. And sent them to kindergarten school where they learned, and got  a full meal, which they often missed at home in their Slum  shack.//  Today,40 years later, proud, valent  warriors wounded by age, all carrying weapons their own personal weapons of war:  canes and walking sticks  – walkers and braces.  Weapons they  needed to keep them strong and steady on their feet, as they cooked the food and washed the pots and pans in that slum kindergarten slum kitchen.  Cooked food to feed the children /their grand children.   

THESE  WARRIORS WHO HAD HEARD THE CALL ON THE SLUM RASPY LOUD SPEAKER … Someone Help me – Please  ….TO ANWER THE CALL: COME TO BATTLE ONE MORE TIME. 

THE CHILDREN/ THEIR OWN GRAND CHILDREN  WERE HUNGRY – SO OUR ANCIENT WRRIORS WITH CRUTCHES AND CANES AND WALKING STICKS CAME TO THEIR SCHOOL – THAT THAT GIVEN THEM A LIFE  SOME 40 YEARS AGO – TAUGTH THEM TO READ   TO WRITE THEIR OWN NAME – FEED THEM A FULL BOWL OF RICE  -  THEY CAME TO  RETURN THAT LIFE TO PASS IT ON TO A HUNGRY CHILD.

                                    TO FIGHT – GIVE THEIR LIVES, IF NECESSRY AS THEY DID SOME FORTY YERS AGO TO LEARN TO READ AND WRITE – AND TO EAT A DECENT MEAL EACH DAY.AND HERE THEY WERE – AT DAWN – DRESSED IN BATTLE GEAR;  THEIR BEST CLOTHING.   TO SHOW HONOR AND RESPECT.  AND IF BLOOD MUST BE SPILLED – IT WOULD BE SPILLED THERE ON WARRIORS CLOTHING FOR THE CHILDREN.

AND THE NEIGHBORS CAME.  THE POLICE CAME:  THE POLCE WHO WERE THEIR  OWN SONS AND DAUGHTERS TO PROTECT MUM AND DAD AS THEY MADE THEIR STAND
LEST ANYONE DARE TURN AWAY ANY CHILD – AS THEY THEMSELVES WERE NEVER TURNED AWAY THOSE YEARS AGO…FROM THEIR SCHOOL, THEIR  KINDERGARDTN WHICH HAD STOOD FOR 40 YEARS.  

And finally – so I can send this to you today, Bangkok time, : 29 May, 2020.  This noon, we are  Right now, we’re cooking and feeding three hundred  plus kindergarten slum kids in ten of our twenty two  slum kitchen kindergartens  with two thousand kids ……scattered in slums here and there .  This coming Monday, June first, we open ALL of our twenty two slum kitchen schools. That is really exciting.  Yes,   school is out, but kids have to eat.  

Our slum kitchens are always open.  Not always filled with goodies, but always open.  And always kids sleeping there  on the floor  plus  a couple of grannies with no other place to go …  Good stuff.  

So this is what I am supposed to do. This is what you expect your priest to do.   Me,  80 year old Fr. Joe.   To beg.  To beg on my knees, if that’s what it takes. To go around to bars and pubs and super markets with a tin cup if necessary for hungry kids;  – food- for our slum kindergarten kids.

So to you good folks reading this –JOIN OUR INFANTRY  BE PROUD.  DEFEND OUR  ANGELS IN RAGS IN OUR SLUM KINDERGARTENS