Greetings from Sarnelli House!

For some disturbing news, Little Josie, who has cerebral palsy, is hospitalized and in ICU. The doctors are doing what they can, but the little angel looks like she is slipping away. She will certainly become one of god's favorite angels.

In Spain , they have a custom called the "running of the bulls". This is when, prior to bullfighting day, the organizers turn the bulls loose to run narrow streets, and so-called "macho men" run ahead of the bulls to show their bravery. Or the amount of demon rum they imbibed. In the village of Pai Si Tong, we had a similar exercise, called the "running of the runts". This was the day we closed the House of Hope and moved 4 babies, namely Miss Hippo, Bunny, Chatchai and Nin Nate, plus 11 other little oafs to Nazareth House. They are a quarrelsome lot on the best of days, and to their evil little minds, this was not looking like the best of days by a long shot.

The runts consider the House of Hope home. It was built over 5 years ago, in response to the "Dying Room" at Sarnelli House. We had added a room downstairs so as to care for deathly sick and dying little people, while keeping them out of the sight of other sick little kids. At that time, we had no access to ARV medicines, anti-bacterial/anti-biotics, nor to any decent TB medicines. This was the period before CEBORIDE I. When concerned friends in Missouri found out, they donated money to build the House of Hope, which became the home for sick kids. It was built too quickly, and we never allowed the fill to settle properly. But despite the shoddy construction job, it fulfilled its purpose admirably. It was at that time that one boy with AIDS and TB nearly wiped us out. The government gave us the boy and assured us he did not have TB. Within two months, it was apparent he had a very virulent type of TB, associated with the AIDS virus. AIDS children were infected by him, and also wee ones in the nursery who did not have AIDS . It took us over a year to clean up the TB, and only money raised by CEBORIDE (a yearly 126 mile bike ride), organized by Sam and Molly Mueller, who had witnessed children dying from lack of ARV medicines) gave us the means to buy the ARV and TB medicines.

But the House of Hope was next disinfected and turned into the nursery. It quickly became evident that it was not a good environment. Rats infected the house, and snakes followed to eat the rats. The foundation was giving away, and wide cracks appeared in the walls. The roof leaked, and the building was just too small. We kept putting off repairs but our little population was growing instead of shrinking, so we reluctantly decided to tear down the old building, and put up a wider, two-story building. Nazareth House of teenage girls was already built, but since we have only 7 teens with AIDS , we decided the time was right to move the nursery to one half of the new Nazareth building. Thus, the "running of the runts"!

It all actually went off quite well! Fierce guerilla-type resistance, a jihad called for and led by Don Rak (who, for some inexplicable reason, together with her sister "King", have the foulest mouths of any little people I have ever met!) brought us close to ethnic cleansing. Don Rak and E.T. were swinging plastic guitars, trying to deck anyone within reach. But promises of dolls, candy, and new mattresses and blankets that don't smell of stale pee, finally won over them and the other toads.

This week, it looks like we might go camping for four days in the Nong Saeng mountains. I am really too old for all this. I keep waiting for Gabriel's horn to summon me home!  

Fr. Mike

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