I have to apologize for being a tad late in writing this month’s news, but I wanted to include the news of today’s visit to Sarnelli House by Miss Universe (a Thai girl). WHICH NEVER HAPPENED. Much ado about nothing. Their bus had an accident, so they cut Sarnelli from their itinerary, and our girls and staff were quite upset.
Other than that, Brian and Kate left Sarnelli on Saturday, to fly to Ireland on Monday, September 2. Then, while they were in Bangkok, Kate got word that her 87-year-old mother was hospitalized and would probably need an operation, so Kate cancelled out on Ireland, and decided to immediately fly home to Sydney to be with her mom. We ask for prayers for her mom Bernie and all the family.
In the meanwhile, at Sarnelli House, our head honcho Kung’s husband lost feeling on his left side and they rushed him to the hospital, where a checkup revealed extremely high blood pressure and a blood sugar count of 240.The stroke symptoms subsided, and he hopefully can return home soon to recuperate and rest.
Our new Sharon Houminer House is up and running smoothly. We were to get three more disabled babies soon, but one of them had an eye operation, and the social workers decided to wait until the baby can travel, and they will be delivered to us at that time. The new housemothers are doing a fine job caring for these kids, while awaiting Ben and Angelique’s return from Holland. Ben will teach them how to use physical therapy with these little ones.
We have a lot of work to do on repairing and re-painting many of our houses. Some houses have leaky roofs, electrical problems, a need for new tiles on bathroom floors, changing toilets from squatter types to western flush toilets, etc. My nephew and niece, Michael John and Amy were here recently, and they promised to foot the bill for the repairs and painting. (I, the ancient uncle, am Michael James).
Except for seasonable colds and sniffles, the children are all healthy and beginning the last month of the first term of school. They will have exams in a couple weeks. The girls are quite diligent in their studies, whereas many of the boys would rather be on the soccer pitch or fishing. Riding herd on them can be a difficult job. A while back, we gathered the boys and gave them a lecture of the value of education, and had them break open their homework. When I drove off, they must have thought I had left for the day. Within an hour I drove back, only to see a lively soccer game being played by the “scholars”. So much for warbling on the value of education.
We hope all of you are well and enjoying good weather and the great outdoors. Please take care and be healthy! May God bless you all.
Fr. Mike, the children and staff
