JUNE NEWS
The June news is late this year, since I wrote the letter with my secretary Jeep but it somehow got mislaid, so we are starting all over. Being better late than never isn’t really true with this new version, but I shall do what I can!
First of all, the boys have been engaged in building a state of the art chicken coop. We kept raising chickens, only to see them die. Antonia, a volunteer with the Good Shepherd Sisters, built a beautiful chicken coop, with piped in music! I don’t know if we are going to take it that far, but we are using her building plans, and thanks to Lipton tea people in Hawaii, who help to sponsor our farm project, we should have enough money for both chickens and piglets. It was school vacation, and the boys were paid for their work. Now, with the oncoming rains, we are beginning to plant rice.
Our latest thunderstorm wiped out electricity. A eucalyptus tree from one of our properties fell over on the main wires going through the village of Pai SI Tong and cut electricity for various villages. The boys cut the tree so the electricity repair trucks could get through, but we found out that we would be fined for the errant tree. We don’t know how much.
We have been lucky having Ben and his wife Angelique here. He is a physical therapist and works with our disabled babies, plus villagers who had strokes, and with me, as I have been crippled from Long Covid. It will be his work if I ever walk again.
We continue to take in new children. Some are just babies, and others are older kids, 8, 10, 12 years old. Some were born with AIDS and others are children of drug addicts who either are in jail or abandoned their kids. We have been given 4 babies whose mothers drank alcohol and took drugs while they were pregnant and the babies came to us with severe mental problems.
The teenagers have finished planting rice in the fields front of my house, and now are planting in the fields in front of their house; about 35 acres. And we will need all that rice to feed our kids and staff.
We hope all our readers are well, and are receiving the blessings of the Lord!
Fr. Mike, Kate, Brian and all the staff and children
