February 29, 2008

Today was a pretty long day. We met Sister Joan for her milk run at 7:00. It was a short walk from where we live. The milk run provides families in need with powdered milk and diapers for their children who are under a year old. It services about 150 children. There is a system set up so that families who qualify must come and present the birth certificate of their child and have their picture taken with their child. Then the caregiver is given a small card with a number on it that they need to present with them when they come every second week. These numbers match up with cards that Sister Joan has including the picture of the child and any other information. When they bring a child there are extra incentives such as free fruit or diapers, depending on the donation. Sister Joan depends on donations to keep the milk run going. She works very hard to ensure that she has enough supplies to provide for all of the families in need, however this is not always an easy task. There is also a committed team of women from Australia who help to ensure that the milk run is a success. They provide most of the donations along with the Australian Embassy and the people of Australia.
We enjoyed the company of these women over lunch at Sister Joan's house. She lives in the middle of the slums, a few minutes away from our first stop. Misty was especially excited to have the ham sandwiches for lunch.
Sister Joan is an amazing woman, and I think she has been one of the most real and humble people we have met here. I cannot even begin to put into words how much this experience moved me. These families are struggling, and cannot even provide the most bare bone necessities to their children. We worry about toys and clothes and books, and what color to paint the nursery, and these families worry about where they can get milk for their child. The faces of the children and their mothers says so much. I should also add that it was not all mothers who brought their children but fathers and grandparents as well. I will post some of these pictures. I wish we would go back with every milk run but unfortunately our schedule does not allow that, but we will try and get back as soon as we can.
The girls had the day off from school because they are writing an exam. We spent most of the morning at Mercy, helping an Australian Production Company prepare for their video shoot. They are doing an advertisement for Mercy. At noon we had a lesson with one of the Burns Sisters' learning how to use i movie on the Macs. In the afternoon we visited with the adults in the AIDS hospice.
In the early evening, the production company threw a big party for all of the kids at Mercy. They had a blow up castle, hotdogs, and ice cream. We took a lot of pictures, I will post them as soon as possible.
We taught for an hour in the evening, preparing one of our students for Singapore. She received a scholarship that is worth 2 million baht a year. She will be entering grade eight there next January.
We had supper with Father Joe and the professor from Singapore at Father Joe's house. There was lots of food and drinks to go around. There were also some staff from Mercy there as well, including the lawyer. He has had a very difficult week this week as he has been working on a lot of emotional cases. Some of them are absolutely disturbing...involving the raping of a 6 month old baby by her father. There are a lot of sick people in this world. I believe that the staff at the Mercy center should be offered counseling.