Dear everybody

Life with our 140 Klong Toey mob of mostly orphaned kids who live with us in five scattered houses here at Mercy Centre plus our small 2 acres’ farm on the outskirts of the city and the 40 kids in our kindergarten in the mud flats of Koh Lao for the Mogan Sea Gypsy kids plus the hostel in the city on the mainland in Ranong City in mid-South Thailand where 30 more go to government school

And by the way…. Yesterday 25 July’s true miracle as our wonderful government gave Thai citizenship to 80 of our kids-  something we had been hoping and praying for and working at for 10 years….

Plus, after a bit of “Irish Horse trading’ the ministry of Public health donated 120 free flu vaccinations to our Sea Gypsy island children also.  Two miracles in one day.

And back here in Bangkok slums our 23 kindergartens over-flowing with kids.  And that is fabulous.  Super fabulous.  Three months ago we graduated 465 Kindergarten 3 kids into the first grade in government schools throughout the city.  And now, our class rooms are filling up again.  So far, almost 300 have registered, and more keep coming – so we will reach our last year’s number.

What an honor.  To have slum kiddies and their mums and dads coming knocking on our school doors - ‘do you have room for one more child and of course, we always do.

So our kindergarten shack schools spread throughout Bangkok slums are flourishing and with their 1,900 ‘slum best’ 3 – 6 year olds plus ten construction site camp kids and 40 more kids, troubled in every way imaginable   (so the  authorities don’t have to stick them in in special institutes)

kids plus here in Klong Toey is so exciting and moving so fast. There is so much going on, it’s almost impossible to keep up, and that is fabulous.  Let me share a few.

And I might have mentioned about the turtles before, but it’s so exciting, it’ worth mentioning again.  Simply said, the turtles are back in the canal swamp.

 Back after years and years.  The turtles have ‘come home.’  And it’s no longer a swamp.  Yes, still a canal, but now, almost clean … almost… clean canal.  If it was really really clean, the chickens and ducks would drink the water, and they don’t… yet.  But we’re on the way.  However, you can see the reflection of the moon light now after almost 20 years.  The garbage is gone.

We did that.  We and our kids and our slum mums and dads.   And the garbage trucks from the city.  Gosh.  I wish you all where here to see it.  It’s really beautiful.  And the frogs are loud and noisy.  And our kids are proud.  They cleaned the swamp.  And there are lots of fish.  The ‘uncles’ say ‘it’s just like in the olden days.’

But back to the school kids.  We mostly, - not totally – but mostly – have enough to eat, and if there’s no food at home, the kids eat double portions at school. We serve ‘lunch’ from six in the morning on … for the kids (and there’s quite a few of them) who miss breakfast….

And we sponsor kids like we have done for years - like about eight hundred – like to make sure they have enough to eat, because you can’t study with a hungry tummy.  really - – but honest down to earth – like school uniforms/ shoes/ book bags/ part of school tuition/ working together with their parents and teachers - money to send granny or ‘uncle to the local clinic. And the tin on the roof of two of our old wooden schools rusted out, so we have to fix that…  but the men in the community helped.    You know – normal stuff.

We carry on.  We don’t boast, but do want to tell you – this is year number 47 we have taught and the total number is close… really … to fifty thousand kids – imagine 50, 000 who can read and write because of our slum schools.

Thank you for being part of all of this.  Being part of our family.  God Bless you.  Keep helping our kids.  Maybe you can send us enough to buy a pair of second hand shoes, or maybe you can go big and send a tax free donation.  The money is all there – it’s just that it’s all in your pockets – as the kids say. Don’t blink.

 Prayers & Respect    fr joe and all of us.