Dear Friends,

Happy Valentine's Day! Greetings from Sarnelli House. Right now. we are fighting a TB epidemic among the kids. Some tots who are orphaned but don't have AIDS, but sleep with AIDS kids in the nursery, caught TB from them. The doctors suggested that we had to burn all the mattresses, pillows, bedclothes and blankets for ALL the runts from first grade down. Last week, there was this huge yellow-green mushroom shaped cloud hovering over the folks of Don Wai. The folks were positive it was an A-bomb attack! We are now buy new stuff, and good quality mattresses that we can wash, since many of these little skunks, especially the girls, tend to whiz in their cocoons rather than get up and to go the bathroom. We sincere hope that changing all bed clothes, etc., plus using paper cups and boiling water for doing dishes will help us beat this AIDS virus. It is a very virulent form.

Now that Christmas and New Year's is over, we have a welcome lull. But the next High feast for Thai youth and kids is : VALENTINE'S DAY!! Despite the displeasure of the government, which considers this a foreign holiday, the Thai love it. And my kids are giving me their menu and it grows daily. So, this evening, pizza, KFC, cake, ice cream, pop and LOTS of chocolate! They will all be sick as poisoned pups on Feb. 15.

Folks from Lafayette diocese in Louisiana have a teenage girl who died of cancer, and was in the same predicament that our AIDS kids are in now. Not much treatment and every treatment is on a trial basis, since the AIDS virus continues to mutate. The girl's name was Charlene Richard, and we are building a volunteer house of 6 rooms, plus a kitchen and rec room, and a laundry room, to be dedicated in her name. She was indeed a saintly soul, simple and had a great love and trust in God. Something we are trying to instill in our runts. She was 16 when she died. Her Mom is in her 80's and still dedicated to the memory of her daughter. The girl had a normal childhood and wasn't running around thumping the Bible or anything. Just a great faith that carried her through a lot of pain and sorrow, but she was still anxious and concerned for the fate and well being of others.

On the local front, 2-year old Miss Soi had an operation to take out her lymph glands in her neck. She has bacteria in her brain, which impedes her walking, and also a rare type of TB (TB necklace), which so far has been drug resistant. This will be Charlene Richard's first test! Another little guy, Ahn, who has AIDS also has to have open heart surgery in March. Please say a prayer for these two. We have 110 children, all orphaned and 60 of them have AIDS.

Yours sincerely

Fr Michael Shea, C.Ss.R.

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