Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Our Rose of Klong Toey, a Christmas baby
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 23/12/2021
» At Christmas, deep in the heart of each of us is a "broken alleluia". So often, almost always, in the slums of Klong Toey and here at Mercy Centre. The whispers, tears, the silent gestures of the children say so much about sadness and being dumped, left alone in an abandoned building or a bus stop. That's the broken part, and the alleluia is the joy of Christmas, of being loved. Being found.
Opening doors for the ordinary
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 15/04/2021
» To kick open the door only once -- and it stays open. That's what our Mercy Centre and Human Development Foundation does.
From the muck andback into the muck, with a different purpose
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 01/06/2020
» It began with a slaughterhouse alumna of our oldest slum kindergarten. She's a young mum now and a heroine in our war on Covid-19. But just a short time ago, she was in a spot of bother. In fact, several spots of bother.
Christmas Letter 2019
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 25/12/2019
» Along with revered legends like the Archangel Gabriel, who appeared to the Virgin Mary to ask if she would be the Mother of Jesus, we hold dearly to the Star in the East.
Magic in the name game
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 21/10/2019
» Most folk around here believe in the power and sacredness of a given name. And maybe that's how Master Ohm survived on pilfered leftover noodles -- by the sacred power of the sacred name pounded into him by the nasty but pious noodle lady who works from a stall parked next to the sacred shrine.
Slum justice
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 12/08/2019
» Her screams saved her life. Lordy Lord that girl could scream. Never heard such screaming.
Klong Toey's own worker of magic
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 02/07/2019
» Jae Muey usually dressed in a secondhand slightly frayed wedding dress, looking very much like a fairy godmother. But she didn't do any whambo-bambo Harry Potter stuff. None of her magic shot out of a fancy wand. Rather, her special powers came from a beautiful soul and a faded three-wheel rickety push cart with a squeaky side wheel.
Keeping the dream alive
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 22/04/2019
» When Granny ordered her daughter and her daughter's "live-in" to move out of their Klong Toey shack, there was no wiggle room for argument and debate. To emphasise this point, Granny had a long pistol, the trigger of which she had never in her life pulled, but a gun, nevertheless.
Hope and sorrow
Life, Father Joe Maier, Published on 04/03/2019
» For several years a five-year-old girl we call Miss Ice lived in a shack with her 25-year-old HIV-infected, tuberculosis-sick mum and three stray dogs no one ever bothered to name.