Klong Toey Children
21 May 2021
Dear everybody
Blessings to you all on this beautiful Friday afternoon. Time to write & offer you, a proper cup of tea. Why? To show honor and respect. That you have remembered our Covid poor. Especially the mums & dads of our slum kindergarten kids, all two thousand of them.
A proper cup of tea (or even whiskey in the ‘tay’) as you might hear mentioned in a pub in Dublin) to thank you in the name of our bedraggled Klong Toey 4, 5 & 6 year olds, their slum kindergartens closed now for over two months. To thank you in the name of their grannies, who are both mum & dad for so many of them, plus the lucky few with real mums & dads, but now some dads, even mums leaving home, leaving their kids once again with their grannies, having lost their jobs; looking for work, anywhere & everywhere.
So we are helping. That’s what we do. That’s what we have always done. Even from the beginning. Even from our first kindergarten class taught in an un-used pig pen in the old slaughter house. Doing what we can. Never forgetting we are a humble slum group – Catholic – Our first church, Holy Mass under the railway bridge, on the canal, across from the Buddhist Temple, next to the slaughter house. Always remembering our humble beginnings. But we have never looked back.
Today, I send you some photos. Yes, Lots are hurting bad, and especially the kids, and that breaks my heart. One photo of our blind mum and her two children who attend our kindergarten. Mum and the good seeing lady who helps her tested yes, with the virus thus are now in hospital. It seems both are not serious cases, never the less, but must be separated from her husband and children, and that breaks the kids hearts. We have tried to explain but as you know, some things you can never explain. Can never stop the tears. All we can say is: their mum is sick, and getting better. But for now, they cannot say their night prayers together with their mum every night as they usually do.
So to go on. True, the vaccines are around, but you have to go looking for them. Sometimes, you get lucky & find them, sometimes, you don’t.
The pictures. One of our men delivering food (eggs) to some folks living in the row houses, and to a poor family in another slum and the final picture of two of our teachers, in a slum kitchen of one of our slum shack kindergartens preparing food for the children. These photos are simply to show you of ‘your donations in action.’
As you know, our feeding program for nearly two thousand slum kindergarten children and now almost four hundred elderly folks goes on, day by day and we are using your donations day by day, where ever the problem is the most urgent for that particular day.
Yes the children are fine, so far. But none & I repeat none have lost their manners and dignity. Thus, my honor & respect to you.
And of course, a proper cup of tea for you all.
Thank you. Prayers & Respect as always Fr. Joe & all staff & the children & their mums & dads & grannies & all the slum folks in our family.
Blessings to you all on this beautiful Friday afternoon. Time to write & offer you, a proper cup of tea. Why? To show honor and respect. That you have remembered our Covid poor. Especially the mums & dads of our slum kindergarten kids, all two thousand of them.
A proper cup of tea (or even whiskey in the ‘tay’) as you might hear mentioned in a pub in Dublin) to thank you in the name of our bedraggled Klong Toey 4, 5 & 6 year olds, their slum kindergartens closed now for over two months. To thank you in the name of their grannies, who are both mum & dad for so many of them, plus the lucky few with real mums & dads, but now some dads, even mums leaving home, leaving their kids once again with their grannies, having lost their jobs; looking for work, anywhere & everywhere.
So we are helping. That’s what we do. That’s what we have always done. Even from the beginning. Even from our first kindergarten class taught in an un-used pig pen in the old slaughter house. Doing what we can. Never forgetting we are a humble slum group – Catholic – Our first church, Holy Mass under the railway bridge, on the canal, across from the Buddhist Temple, next to the slaughter house. Always remembering our humble beginnings. But we have never looked back.
Today, I send you some photos. Yes, Lots are hurting bad, and especially the kids, and that breaks my heart. One photo of our blind mum and her two children who attend our kindergarten. Mum and the good seeing lady who helps her tested yes, with the virus thus are now in hospital. It seems both are not serious cases, never the less, but must be separated from her husband and children, and that breaks the kids hearts. We have tried to explain but as you know, some things you can never explain. Can never stop the tears. All we can say is: their mum is sick, and getting better. But for now, they cannot say their night prayers together with their mum every night as they usually do.
So to go on. True, the vaccines are around, but you have to go looking for them. Sometimes, you get lucky & find them, sometimes, you don’t.
The pictures. One of our men delivering food (eggs) to some folks living in the row houses, and to a poor family in another slum and the final picture of two of our teachers, in a slum kitchen of one of our slum shack kindergartens preparing food for the children. These photos are simply to show you of ‘your donations in action.’
As you know, our feeding program for nearly two thousand slum kindergarten children and now almost four hundred elderly folks goes on, day by day and we are using your donations day by day, where ever the problem is the most urgent for that particular day.
Yes the children are fine, so far. But none & I repeat none have lost their manners and dignity. Thus, my honor & respect to you.
And of course, a proper cup of tea for you all.
Thank you. Prayers & Respect as always Fr. Joe & all staff & the children & their mums & dads & grannies & all the slum folks in our family.
