Merry Christmas from Mercy Centre & our beloved Slums of Bangkok. It’s been 50 years now – 50 Christmas years – since we began our yearly Mercy Centre/Slum Christmas in our beloved Klong Toey.  And 50 years since our beloved kindergarten Catholic girl, now a grandmom, playing in the shallow water on the side of the Rong Mu Slaughterhouse canal, first sighted/found the statue of Blessed Virgin Mary tightly holding the infant Jesus in her arms – floating face up, half submerged in the canal water leading into the river. She screamed Mommy, Mommy. It was barely past dawn and two of our devout Catholic men, just finishing their nightly work in the slaughter house, ran to her in panic. She pointed, trembling. They jumped into the water, rescuing the two foot tall Statue of Our Lady. On that most precious day, the Catholic Slaughter House ladies asked Sister Maria, the Holiest person they knew, to carry Our Lady’s Statue holding Infant Jesus to our chapel under the bridge…They themselves did not dare… they felt not holy enough.

That’s the original statue of Our Blessed Mother which protected our first slaughterhouse kindergarten – there, in that vacant holding pen for pigs - where our beloved Sister Maria taught our Catholic children to say their Ave Maria’s. So Merry Christmas once again, after these fifty years – You, our family, our kinfolk whom we love and whom Our Lady loves so much. Today, we still teach over one thousand children in 17 slum locations and have over eighty homeless orphans living with us here in our Mercy homes – not far from our original kindergarten. Our wish is for you to make your own way to your own Bethlehem in life as did the holy family of Joseph and Mary and Jesus. We have always thought of you as family, and now 50 years later – humbled to know you are close relatives – always have been – always will be. 

Blessings,
Fr. Joe