Showing 31-40 of 46 results
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Slum pioneer swept away to victory
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 01/06/2014
» Auntie Boon Mee looks and carries on in life pretty much how you’d expect a high-class Klong Toey slum pioneer woman to look and carry on.
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Just for a while
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 06/07/2014
» Miss Tang: she’s one of the happiest girls I have ever met. And you can just close your eyes and visualise her — a super kid at the top of her game of life. Hasn’t lost a battle yet, although she’s been battered and bruised much too often for any teenager.
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Ducking for cover
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 20/04/2014
» Let me tell you a story of Master Gan — a new child at Mercy Centre — he’s Songkran and Easter, all at “a mighty five years old”. Right now, he’s not at his mental and physical peak because he’s got chickenpox — but he’s almost well again.
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A sprightly angel and a sacred tree
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 09/03/2014
» Lovely Miss Sprite. Angel of the week — second year of kindergarten — winner of the colouring contest — elegantly going on five years of age. She has a voice pitched between the song of an angel and a chirping baby bird sitting on the edge of the nest, not quite ready to fly. Likes to put a leaf behind her ear — picked from that Sacred Tree behind their slum shack. Her mum used to do that too. Lovely features, she has a smile that could stop any herd of wild elephants that might be visiting the neighbourhood. As for her innate beauty? You would immediately pick her out of a crowd. There was a problem: orphan girls fetch a pretty price. But we dealt with that.
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Story of shepherds and angels still burns bright
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 22/12/2013
» When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, angels travelled from high heaven to tell the news to a small group of shepherds guarding their sheep by night. And of course, the children woke up when they heard the angels speaking to their parents and then singing their heavenly song about the birth of the holy child, and the children were dazzled by the light of an unknown star in the sky.
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Miss Mott's Slaughter House survival
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 17/11/2013
» This is the harsh story of our own Miss Mott and the home-grown, inbred violence and drug savagery that seeped into Klong Toey's Slaughter House a few years back. Miss Mott was Slaughter House-born in the Year of the Rabbit _ the most gentle of creatures _ destined never to hurt anyone or anything but with predators all around.
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Ms Teacher Lady
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 06/10/2013
» Let me tell you about an old-time Klong Toey revolutionary: a slum kindergarten teacher. Still going strong in her seventh cycle of years _ that makes her more than 72. But don't dare ask her if her beautiful hair is turning slightly grey, even around the edges. No guns, no knives, only pencils and paper and nursery rhymes. You'd say: ''What? A kindergarten teacher revolutionary? You're daft.'' But that's the gig. As long as she can remember, that horrible proverb rattled around in her head _ not enough children to tend our water buffalo. Even as a little girl, she told her mum _ that's not right. And schoolmarm mum said: ''You're right my daughter, so you change that.''
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Little girl with a big heart up from under the expressway
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 04/08/2013
» Demure Miss Tangmo (Watermelon) tries to be as good and loving as any mum on the planet, but she's only eight, and she worries a lot about her five-year-old brother and the twins. Not that there's really much to worry about there: he's happy and the twins are jolly three-year-old eating machines. Her mum, back in rehab? That's a worry, but it's nothing new.
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Motorbikes, miles and an endless cycle for slum girl
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 16/06/2013
» The first time, 12 years ago, it was an easy rescue. Her dad, a European man, kicked down the door, barged in and beat up the two bad guys with his fists, cracked their skulls with a beer bottle, and picked up his three-year-old daughter, Miss Jew Waew. He waved down a taxi and brought her to us at Mercy. He had heard that we took care of abandoned kids.
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Easter spirit shines through children's smiles in slum
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 31/03/2013
» She crones that ancient children's lament, ''Auntie of the Moon'', over and over. Eight-year-old Miss Phae can't talk clearly _ only babbles _ and her tongue goes in all different directions. Yet her best friend, nine-year-old Miss Phon understands perfectly when Miss Phae sings, ''Please find me a kind granny for my little sister and a kind granny who loves me too.''
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