Hit the ground running

A great start.  Our little team left Pattaya for Rayong first thing on Sunday in time to join the children at the Camillian Social Centre for Mass and lunch.  Covered in children vying for hugs, none of us felt remotely unwelcome in the chapel.

Lunch with seventy children, other supporters, Fr Peter and Fr Dao was followed by visits to
 the Independent Living Centre which is presently home to 13 older children, shortly to grow to 19 when six more move from the Social Centre after the end of the semester in March.

Then on to the Garden of Eden, which last year made great strides forward with its farming projects - fruit, vegetables, pigs, fish, chickens, frogs - only to see all its fish and some of its crops washed away in the floods.  Huge concrete tanks were picked up and moved by the force of water, but cracked beyond repair in the process.  Some of the damage has already been repaired, but there's a lot of work still to do.

Back to Pattaya and the happiness which is the Fr Ray Children's Village where 52 children live in homes of six to eight  children.  In a blissfully green and tree covered site, with its own farm and footall pitch, this is a wonderful home and community.

Today started at 7:45 with the Flag raising ceremony at the Redemptorist Vocational School.  One of the Computer and Business English students spoke movingly about her life and achievements.  Four years ago, aged just 16, this lady came to the school without formal education. Four years later, she is on the brink of going into the wider world equipped with Thai, maths, colloquial English and computer skills.  Maybe we can do a short film for the website.

Then to the Pattaya Orphanage, where Adele (first time here as a mother)  found the baby room upsetting.  The babies are beautifully cared for, but her heart was touched by the thought that a mum, however young herself, feels she has to leave a tiny baby.  Today there were sixty children under two, of whom ten were less than six weeks old.