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Blog posts : "Updates 2009 Updates 2010 Updates 2011 Updates 2012 Updates 2013 Updates 2014 Updates 2015 Updates 2016 Updates 2017 Updates 2018 Updates 2019 Updates 2020 Updates 2021 Updates 2022"

December 2022 Update

Season’s greetings!

Here we are, after another year has shot by. For a change, we have all good news. First of all, Covid is lurking nearby, but not in our vicinity. Although some of our staff sill wear masks daily, hardly any of the kids need t…

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November 2022 Update

November, 2022                            

Good morning from Sarnelli House!
                             
The cold season and harvest time are approaching. The winds have switched to north and south, bringing chilly…

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October 2022 Update

Dear Friends of Sarnelli House,

We have some good news this time. The Covid Devil finally left us again. We had 8 young ladies and Brother Geng as victims this time. The “Hoof and Mouth” virus has also been eradicated, so we can all rejoice and wa…

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September 2022 Update

I hope this letter finds all of you safe and healthy. None of our kids or staff has come down with Covid, for nearly a month. But you still have to wear a mask to get into stores, hospitals, etc. The Thai don’t fight the mask and distancing. But 9 of…

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August 2022 Update

Dear Friends of Sarnelli House,

I want to apologize for missing the July newsletter! Covid had struck for the fifth time at Sarnelli House. The older kids who had escaped it before caught it this time! Also, I finally caught it. I had been warned …

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June 2022 Update

Dear All,

I am writing with some good news, for a change! Schools are opening up, and the cases of Covid among the young remain mild, so I don’t think that the schools will be closing so easily this year. The start of kindergarten didn’t go so wel…

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May 2022 Update

Not that much has changed in the past two years. Covid continues to roam our seven houses here. The most disappointing recent case is that of a lovely young college girl. 
Back in December, when one of our little girls from the nursery contracted …

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April 2022 Update

HAPPY THAI NEW YEAR!

Thailand celebrates three New Years every year. January 1, April 13-15, the Thai New Year, and sometime early February, Chinese New Year. Thai New Year consists of a lot of feasting and drinking, with the throwing of water (an…

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March 2022 Update

We were getting all ready for a nice Valentine’s Day party for the children, when Sarnelli House was hit by Covid again. The son of one of our staff passed the virus on to his mother, who then infected some of the kids and staff. Other kids were infe…

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February 2022 Update

Today is a big day for me. I arrived in Thailand on February 2, 1966. If I have figured right, that puts me 56 years in Thailand. 55 of these years have been spent in the upcountry missions along the Mekong River. Not one day passes, that I don’t thi…

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January 2022 Update

Happy New Year to all!

I think about everyone would agree we are happy to see 2021 in our rearview mirror. We had four deaths of our older teenagers, plus a storm that ripped up trees, damaged our buildings, cut off power for weeks, right during t…

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December 2021 Update

A frosty hello to all!

    Days are shorter and colder, but nothing like the days I remember from my youth in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin! But here we have no way of warming homes or heaters in cars. The wind from the Lao mountains just north o…

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November 2021 Update

THE LATEST FROM SARNELLI HOUSE!

    October saw a hurried response to the Covid outbreak in the Nongkhai province. The staff received their second jab of vaccine, with no one having any severe repercussions. Our children ages 12 on up received the…

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October Update

Happy Halloween!

Life for the kids during the last few months has been hectic and confusing. Early last month, they returned to school, after online study because of a Covid break out. Within a few days schools closed again, since a government sch…

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September 2021 Update

After three months, we finally got what looks like a short monsoon season. The monsoons usually begin in late May, not late August. Up to this point, there was flooding north of us in China, and south of us in the Malay Peninsula, but we would get on…

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August 2021 Update

Friends of Sarnelli!

    Thank you so much for your donations for the children here at Sarnelli House. Donations from people here in Thailand are way down, and good Buddhist folks can’t come to make merit by feeding the multitude of runts we have,…

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July 2021 Update

    The year is already half over, and the dreary presence of Covid looms larger and larger in the Kingdom. The children don’t complain much, but for others who graduated, got a job and then lost the job, thanks to Covid shutting down the country, it…

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June 2021 Update

Dear Friends of Sarnelli House,
    
    Like every other country, Thailand is experiencing the third wave of Covid 19, which has brought over 1,000 deaths so far. For a year, we were sailing along with the virus largely under control. But Covid…

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May 2021 Update

    In the seminary, about 65 years ago, we had a song “Tis the merry month of May”. Well, there isn’t too much merriment this year! Covid has finally reached the Mekong River, after being in the country for way over a year. Being an old man with hea…

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April 2021 Update

Happy Easter!

    The hot season ushered in Easter this year, with heat indexes up to 110 degrees F. And worse is yet to come. Sarnelli has a new priest, just ordained, who took Holy Week services at Don Wai, helping the pastor. Fr. James also had…

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