Greetings from Sarnelli House!  

I am writing bring our readers up to date on activities, and also to thank those again, who gave donations for the children of SARNELLI HOUSE! Your donation comes in very handy, since we just took in two more girls, and also have found destitute AIDS children with their parents or relatives in the outer villages. The two girls are sisters, and were passed from family to family, and no one knows what happened to them. The older girl, Lyn, is 13 and looks like she is 6. She has AIDS and TB, and looks like a victim of Dachau. The younger sister is 9 and does not have AIDS, but shows traces of TB from her sister. The younger girl, Biew, is also small for her age. After taking them in, the family they were with came to take back the smaller one, so she could take care of their children. I suspect that Lyn was raped, and the guy who came with his wife and some family members is a scary looking pup, all tattooed and a skin condition. Biew has absolutely no papers, and I think it is so she can be a virtual slave in the family. I finally chased them and got in touch with the authorities. Since she is not their relative, the cops will side with us.

    The older girls from Viengkhuk's Girls Home have been working in Sarnelli House with the 52 AIDS infected kids there, and also with the babies and runts at the House of Hope. The boys are painting St. Pat's home during the school break, and the little girls spent two weeks down river at Huei Suem.

    Monday, summer school starts. It will run half days until the Songkran break. That is the 4 day celebration of Thai New Year, when people throw water at each other; play cards, get drunk and wind up throwing up or unconscious in ditches. Then, back to summer school until April 23, when everyone but Josie and the babies travel for a blissful week in Pattaya, going places and doing things. Sleeping in rooms with A/C, four or six to a room. Good food. Lots of swimming and sight seeing. It is the high point of the year. It is also kind of expensive. But we are lucky that each year, we get surprise donations that tide us through the week. When they return, it is show time for the new school year.

    The Outreach Program is finally organized, and the teams enjoy getting out and meeting and helping new AIDS patients, and poor people with health problems. Also, every Friday morning, our AIDS clinic funnels 30-40 people to the hospital or to clinics for blood tests and medicine. The government hospitals have been very supportive and co-operative in these ventures. And the AIDS suffers truly appreciate our efforts.

    The hot season has arrived big time, and we did have one big, long beautiful session of 12 hours of torrential rain. Grass is turning green, but it is also very humid now. Not my favorite time of year.

    Again, thank you very much, and may the Good Lord bless you and yours generosity and good health.  

Gratefully,  

Father Mike   

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