At New Year’s Day Mass with the kids, we all prayed that the new Year of the Ox would be better than the old Year of the Rat. But the threat of Covid has closed schools up along the Mekong River for at least a week, and big gatherings of people…
At New Year’s Day Mass with the kids, we all prayed that the new Year of the Ox would be better than the old Year of the Rat. But the threat of Covid has closed schools up along the Mekong River for at least a week, and big gatherings of people…
At New Year’s Day Mass with the kids, we all prayed that the new Year of the Ox would be better than the old Year of the Rat. But the threat of Covid has closed schools up along the Mekong River for at least a week, and big gatherings of people…
Happy Holidays!!
We have one month left of what is, I think, the worst year since the Second World War. In Thailand, we were spared the ravages of the Covid virus, but not the economic fallout. The drought killed about 70% of our rice crop, wh…
Happy Thanksgiving Day!
Granted that there is much to NOT be thankful for this miserable year, we can at least thank the Lord for survival, so far. It seems the world has lurched from pillar to post the whole year, from one crisis to another. …
We had a real tragedy a little over two weeks ago. On Monday evening, (September 14) about 7:30 pm, a terrible incident happened near Sarnelli House. A man from the village hung himself on the basketball court, using rope from the volleyball net. …
September 2020
I can’t recall a duller month than this August. No kids got seriously sick or got into serious trouble. Five babies and toddlers at the House of Hope came down with Chicken Pox, but all are ok now. Even the staff stayed healthy.…
Dear friends of Sarnelli House,
Thailand has had only 58 deaths from the coronavirus, so they are opening schools starting today. The kids are actually looking forward to going back, even the boys. The lockdown kind of got to us all.
…
June 2020
June starts out as another miserable month, when everyone is suffering from the coronavirus; whether they are sick, have lost jobs and lack help for food and rent. So far, 8 of our children have returned; two of them are quite ill wi…
May 2020
Usually, we are out cackling “’tis the merry month of May”, but with this accursed virus darting around, there is nothing merry about these times. I must admit that although Thailand was the first country outside of China to announce …
APRIL 2020
It certainly is a different world just since my last letter. Except for one Dutch couple, our volunteers and guests have all departed. Paul and Chrissy, our German volunteers from the APO Lutheran church in Oberhausen …
The children are almost all out of school. So we have two months planning activities and riding herd on over 150 kids. They all have their special wants and needs, and workers on our aging staff are hard put to stay up with them. Just so t…
Feb. 3 , 2020
In our Redemptorist novitiate at De Soto, Missouri, in 1958-59, we used to call February the tunnel month. February had miserable cold, damp Missouri weather; strict Lenten fasts, and seemed to be a year long month. T…
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
We had a nice Christmas. We had 18 volunteers and guests at dinner the evening of December 25 at Charlene Richard House. I bought a turkey at a supermarket in Udorn. A girl who works there cooks the bird, and makes s…
As we begin Advent and the holiday season, we have abandoned our rice harvest. We cut the stalks and will bale them up to feed the cows, since the rice kernels are non existent, or too small to mill. Some local people have brought in rice for the kid…
November, 2019
In nearly every parish in Thailand, a Mass is offered in each cemetery, during the month of November, for the departed relatives and friends of the parishioners. The cemetery for the villages of Don Wai, Pai Si Tong, and smaller com…
October, 2019
This is the time of year that the sun is scorching hot in a cloudless sky. The nights are cooling down, and early mornings are cool and breezy. Perfect weather for rice that has headed out, and the weather would be ripening the kerne…
September, 2019
In the last couple of months, we have been moaning that the monsoon season had not come to northeast Thailand. Up to August 21, the north-northeast section of Thailand was in a drought. No measurable rain, and planted rice died or …
August, 2019
I just reached 55 years as a priest, having been ordained in 1964, on July 2. On August 2, I celebrated 60 years as a Redemptorist. I took my first vows in 1959. I spend a lot of time recalling incidents over the past 60 years or so;…
Dear Friends of Sarnelli House,
June is always time to plow the fields, and prepare the beds in order to scatter rice, so as to have the seedlings grow to about 6-8 inches, and then in July pull up the stalks and transplant them in t…
The kids are now all in school; the college kids are finishing their second term, while everybody else is weeks into the new school year. Brother Keng has found a two story building in Nongkhai, and older boys who have found jobs in town will rent th…