The co-founder of our Mercy Centre, Sister Maria Chantavardom, celebrated her 84^th birthday last week. God bless her! She is still incredibly active… still dynamic... and still the very heartbeat of everything we’ve ever accomplished and everything we still endeavor to do for our children and poorest neighbors. She began working with Fr. Joe when he first arrived in Bangkok’s slaughterhouse Parish in 1972. Together, Sister Maria and Fr. Joe opened the first Mercy kindergarten in 1972, and in the years that followed they developed a system of preschool education and neighborhood support that now reaches out daily to tens of thousands of poor children and families.

As our New Year of 2014 has begun, I would like to greet you all in gratitude on behalf of our beloved HDF-Mercy Centre. 

Best Christmas and New Years Wishes from our House Moms, House Dads, Social Workers, and our Mercy Children. Photos of our Mercy Child by Taryn Wilson.

To be an orphan on Father’s Day – even at best, it’s pretty tough.

Our social workers are working hand in hand with the Rom Klao community, following the devastating fire that left 400 residents without shelter. Just two weeks after the fire, real progress is being made. This community will become whole again.

Late in the afternoon this past Saturday a raging fire engulfed the Klong Toey neighborhood known as Rom Klao. Fire and rescue workers were able to save the community from total destruction, but not before 72 homes were leveled, leaving 428 residents, including 98 children, without shelter. Everything the victims owned was destroyed.