Flood

It is a New Year and Mercy Centre is thriving as always with children’s play and laughter at every corner. The weather this time of year is pleasant, not hot not cold, no flood and no harsh sun. However, in the South of Thailand it has not been like this. Over Christmas the Southern provinces have experienced an unusual bad monsoon and almost half of the country has been flooded resulting in over 30 deaths, broken train tracks, collapsed bridges and closed airports. People have lost their homes and farmers have lost their crops.

Our Mercy home in Ranong was also hit but thankfully nothing more severe than a flooded 1^st floor and some broken furniture.

Others were not that lucky and on Wednesday during the annual staff meeting we all gave donations to be sent down to help those affected in the Southern provinces.

Children’s Day (Sports Day)

Saturday 14 January is the national Children’s Day in Thailand and all over Bangkok there will be fun events and activities for our Klong Toey kids to participate in. This day is all about enjoying life as the young and celebrating the new generation – and our Mercy children will be accompanied by the house parents and travel to as many fun events they can manage in a day :)

Today Friday 13 January the Thai schools arrange their yearly Sports Day and all of our Mercy schools engaged with amazing outfits, happy songs and great enthusiasm to show their athletic skills and most importantly strong team work. We even had an Olympic Flame!

For more great pictures and a video from this super fun day see our YouTube and Facebook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0jjC8hOJss

https://www.facebook.com/mercycentre/?fref=ts

45^th Anniversary

This year, 2017, it is 45 years since HDF Mercy Centre opened their first school doors and the first set of children’s feet were skipping of excitement and loads of energy to start learning writing and arithmetic’s; and grateful parents that finally had a place their children could be safe, fed and cared for while they worked.

50,000 Kindergarten graduates later HDF Mercy Centre will be hosting a series of events and activities throughout the year. To honor the ones who have supported us and made it possible to continue and expanding for the last 45 years; and also to invite new members of our extend family to join us and help us spread the word of the children and every partner we have in the shanty slums of Klong Toey and Bangkok. Please do join us to show the world who we are and most importantly how amazing our children are and that we will continue to work in partnership with the poorest of the poor for many more years to come – our job is far from done.

Stay tuned for more information of upcoming events!

Happy weekend to you all

Prayers,

Father Joe