Fr Adriano Pelosin, a 20-year veteran PIME missionary in Thailand, tells their story. Some 200 children are directly helped and another 2,000 are monitored.

Bangkok (AsiaNews) – Pui and Pen are five-and seven-year-old girls. They lived in a flat with their mother in Bangkok. One day the mother asked a neighbour to take her daughters to school and pick them up later since she couldn’t because of work. She would come afterwards to take them home. But one night she did not come. The neighbour continued to take the girls to school and pick them up hoping for their mother’s return. Their father’s whereabouts remained unknown. After two months “the neighbour came to see us and asked us to take care of the two girls because he and his wife, both elderly, could no longer cope with the responsibility. Now Pen and Pui are living in the Saint Lucy family home,” said Fr Adriano Pelosin, PIME, in Thailand for more than 20 years. Their story is but one among many that he tells in a letter he wrote to people who sponsored children.

Over time, Father Pelosin along with Fr Raffaele Manenti, also from PIME, and priest at Our Lady of Mercy Parish, some 200 children have found a home in some ten family homes or with “adoptive grannies”.

Cio, a 12-year-old boy who practically lived in the streets, is now living in the St John family home. His mother abandoned him when he was only three. His father was away for long periods of time because of work. He was looked after from time to time by neighbours. But quickly, he learnt how to get by thieving, lying and playing videogames. Then drugs and dropping out of school appeared on the horizon.

Tam lives instead at the St Mary Home. “I met him as he was wandering the streets of the Tuek Deng slum,” Fr Pelosin said. “We briefly chatted. I asked him: “Why aren’t you in school? My father does not send me. And your mother? I don’t know where she is. Where do you live? He took me to the shack where his father was sleeping. He didn’t want to bother him because he works night shifts as a sanitation worker and has little time for his son. Now Tam is very happy to go to school with all his classmates.”

Then there is Bi. She is only one and half. She lives at the St Chiara Home in Nag Sue with her sister Pak, 5. Their parents died recently from AIDS. Their aunt Kek cooks at the family home.

Jay, a seven-year-old boy, lost his father and his mother has vanished. His grandmother is old and frail and can’t take care of him. Now he is at the St Mary Home.

“These are but a few of the many stories I could tell you,” the missionary said. “Some are so horrendous that I’d rather not talk about them. But by the grace of God we were able to save four girls from sexual violence by their respective father or step-fathers. Now three are in separate homes.

“In addition to our children, we know about others who have some relatives providing them with some care. This is the case of three little sisters: My, 11; Mook, 8; and Min, 7. Their father is dead and their mother is not interested in them. They live with an uncle and aunt who already have two sons and little money.”
And that is not all. “We help some 2,000 poor children who live in various shanty towns that dot the landscape in and around Bangkok. We also support two other projects, one in Mae Sot (north-western Thailand) with the School of Hope for refugee children from Burma, and another in the south for children affected by the tsunami. We take care of AIDS patients and the elderly abandoned by their families and living in the shanties.”
”We are concerned about the growth of all of our children, about their education and training. For this reason we look for people who are better prepared to work locally. We have also sent a young man to study psychology at university in Padua (Italy). Three more young people will go next year: a young woman to Bologna and two who are likely to attend Milan’s Catholic university to study Education. The University in Padua is sending us two psychologists, Maria and Riccardo from ‘Psychologists Without Borders’ to give us a hand with teenagers in the St John Family Home. They should stay for nine months and then be replaced by two other young women.”

Fr Pelosin ends his letter saying that “Holy Christmas reminds us of the infinite greatness and extreme vulnerability of a child. Like Mary Mother of Jesus, and Joseph, we are confident in God’s help to protect the poor and the little ones. Let He who is Father of orphans and widows help us have the same faith as Mary and Joseph did so that His children are not killed by Herod, nor suffer exile and instead find peace and serenity in a family that may love them.”

 

• thailand
• father
• adriano
• pelosin
• pime
• family
• home
• grannies
• abandoned
• children