Showing 1-10 of 31 results
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The long road to mercy
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 19/02/2012
» Seven, she favours that number. She's seven times seven years of age and has been "Mother Gung" to our HIV/Aids kids under seven for seven years now. It's been, she says, "a long journey, and I choose to stay".
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Two fortunes linked together _ Klong Toey style
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 17/06/2012
» It all went down in Aunty Tien's Noodle Shop, also known as the Klong Toey Slaughterhouse local ladies' noodle shop, where the matriarchs of the neighbourhood trade stories and gossip. Aunty Tien is the proprietor. She had taken the girl in, a teenager on the run from the brokers, sleeping nights in a stall at the Klong Toey fresh market.
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Ex-street kids fight the nightmares and find the dream
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 05/08/2012
» Ever since she was 11 and on the streets, Noi had always dreamed she would get married in the proper style, with a dowry, a ring and a bridesmaid. Her husband would have a real job and talk nice and love her. After she met the right man she promised herself that she would make it happen, and she wanted it even more after her two children were born. Her husband Somchai, also street-raised, always had the same response when she told him of her matrimonial dreams: "Why not?" But that was as far as it went.
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Miss Dao and her amazing feats
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 23/09/2012
» She has mostly had to learn everything herself. Mum couldn't be there for her, and Miss Dao also has to take care of Granny, as she'd promised her mother. You know, things like mixing her betel nut chaw and holding her hand crossing the street. She has three older half-brothers and a half-sister, but they aren't close. Her half-sister is married, and Dao only saw her once at the temple for her mother's cremation.
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A Christmas story, Klong Toey style
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 23/12/2012
» They tried to lead a normal family life, but they were always looking back over their shoulders ... never quite sure if Herod's soldiers knew, when they killed all those children in Bethlehem more than eight years before, that Jesus had escaped that horrible nightThe children at our Mercy Centre don't really worry about time and space, so yesterday, today and even tomorrow all become ''right now''. If a story rings true to them, they ''buy in''. Like all kids, ours have an unerring sense of what's real and what's fake. And without exception, they like the story of Christmas. So here at Mercy, we celebrate Christmas every day, but especially on Dec 25, when we follow our Sacred Traditions.
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A 'voice from the sky' breaks _ and charms _ old hearts in Klong Toey
Spectrum, Father Joe Maier, Published on 24/02/2013
» Somehow Nung Ning's music soothes the decades and the old pains of these elderly ladies and brings back the beautiful memories of yesteryear.
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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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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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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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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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