Dear everyone       
 
To light a pair of candles: A Catholic candle lite by me the priest and a Buddhist candle lite by the Abbot just as we did, with our beloved Sister Maria standing by, 50 years ago. Seeking Protection & Blessing from our Blessed Mother Mary, Mother of Jesus whose statue stands tall in our poverty-stricken Catholic chapel under the bridge next to the slaughterhouse & a candle from the Buddhist Temple directly across the canal. 
 
To light candles seeking special heavenly protection and blessing once again officially begging heaven for our slum slaughterhouse
children. School is now in Session. Just as ‘we begin school ’in an un-used holding pen for pigs, with our first six slaughterhouse kindergarten boys and girls those 50 years ago. Slum Slaughterhouse kindergarten is once more back in session.
 
And what’s more: our older kids (those who had studied before the Covid… tattle-tailed on their mommies – those mommies often forgot to say their Buddhist night prayers as our teachers had taught them, and of course, the Ave Maria to Our Blessed Mother.
 
Covid 19 – or whatever you wish to name it, really did kick us around. That was three years ago. First time we closed our doors of our seventeen kindergartens in those 50 years. That was a sad day. 
Some of the children were crying - a few more at home because of covid sickness. We had to close. No choice. But the rest of the kids came up, put garlands in my hands and made me promise to them I would not leave them without a kindergarten. As they had to learn how to write their own names.  Me, Fr. Joe, not to get sick or die. And we would soon again say “Good Morning Teacher, say our prayers & learn to read and write and count at our beloved kindergarten again. Soon.
 
And a promise is a promise. Especially made to children who ask to you to vow, with a flower garland as a trust and touching the feet of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus. The teachers and Fr. Joe would not go away. The school will open again. And it has. This week.
 
So, you see, it was the children. All these three years, they knew they had to go to school.  The children brought us back home.  And as we closed with candles and tears and flowers and promises three years ago, as we began 50 years ago, this week, we kept our promise: After a necessary three years of closure, they children, young and old gathered at the front door of our beloved school, chanting: You Promised. You Promised.    
 
The children wanted their world back again. Their children’s world that was rudely snatched/grabbed hideously from them. Their friends. Their children’s’ society. Their learning. Their growing up to be adults in their own way. Yes, guided by adults, but only guided. Their world where they can be children.  Behave as children with other children … children’s rules…
 
You should see the seven-year-old ‘old timers’ (who sat in a classroom before Covid) instruct their ‘youngers’ who have never sat in a classroom before what to do/ what is allowed and not allowed. And to see them / how they strut and preen in their old school uniforms – even though the uniform be slightly bedraggled and worn. Angels in disguise.
 
The children say: a uniform or even a shirt or a blouse one day a week is important. So, we agreed. No one needs a complete uniform. That’s for the rich kids ‘up-town, out of the slum.’ For shoes: flip-flops are fine, even if they don’t match color or size. 
 
We have a huge task ahead of us:  the whole Thai Kindergarten education (slum system). To repeat myself: three years without education. No gathering of the children at their schools. Yes, we have had a lunch program for the indigent kindergarten slum children. However, in real money, it costs @ 45 Thai Baht per children per day, per meal. The government gives us twenty.!!! Some generous sponsors help some. But ‘we come up short.’ We don’t have much money left for the children. 
 
I haven’t talked about the forty kids who live with us – orphans back to classroom and our Sea Gypsy orphans in middle South Thailand and the twenty-seven Klong Toey ‘special kids’ who can’t make it on their own whom The Police & Welfare Dept. send sent to special Government schools.  And our HIV Aids kids and abused kids we represent in police stations. And our favorite really abandoned kids living in abandoned buildings, but that’s for another day.
 
A huge task. Our Biggest task ever in fifty years, but together we can do it. Once again, our slum children are learning to read and write and count and pray. And we humbly follow along with them with our seventeen slum kindergartens.   
 
We and our children and teachers & slum parents & and even timid government people walk tall in the shadow of the children. They are leading the way. We are following. 
 
Please help. Your donation is directly to teach the children.  I know this is what the children want and desperately need.  They must go to school. There is no other choice. They tell us what they need; what is important to them here and now.
 
And it is urgent and necessary. 
 
Children horribly abused from adults, out of work, straying from the law, drug addicts, mostly in their own homes. Dads are not around. Children abused especially by male relatives. It is urgent we get these kids back into their safe classrooms. Please help us. Please. 
 
I know this is a huge task: of once more starting up our beloved slum education. But yes, the children are afraid. We are also. We simply cannot protect them all.   
 
Also, the children tell me: Father Joe. We own the slums & we own the streets. We own the kindergartens. But more and more bad people are trying to hurt us. Please Fr. Joe, protect us.  
  
So, my brothers and sisters, my family reading this: we will meet you ‘at the new Klong Toey Slaughterhouse Jubilee. And on the wall of each of our seventeen schools, there is a blank piece of paper: it’s there for you – there for you to sit down with one of the children there and write down your dreams/or draw a picture of dreams for tomorrow dreams that you must help come true in that slum kindergarten school. 
 
All for now. I will ‘keep in touch. This is all so very exciting. I am honored you are our family. All of you, one day soon, please do ‘come home’ to Klong Toey.  I give you my word, even with a garland of flowers, touching the feet of the Statue of Our Blessed Mother Mary that following the children, we will walk together to their school. All of us and see our slum children, your family, back safely, once again, in their classrooms. And you can write or draw a picture of your dreams on that blank piece of paper on the wall of the school.
 
To conclude. We don’t have much money.  Help whatever you can.  

Prayers & Respect as always   Fr. Joe & the children