Letter from Thailand: Sarnelli House needs you..

Returning from a visit to Fr Mike Shea, I am taking the unusual step of writing personally to ask you for your generous support for his work. Fr Mike is the founder of Sarnelli House. His work there started 16 years ago with a promise to a woman dying of AIDS that he would care for her children after she was gone. A promise he kept meticulously, to her and to other parents who succumbed to AIDS as it swept unchecked, through North-East Thailand.

The spread of HIV is now better controlled, and the number of new children with HIV welcomed to Sarnelli has declined. But the expert team assembled by Fr Mike still has its hands full. Their reputation for high quality care makes them the first port of call for welfare agencies and courts seeking safe haven for abused children. Children like little Khing Kaew, whose leg was broken in a beating by her mentally ill mother, and Stang, aged one, found by Sarnelli's outreach team malnourished and tied to a post by his desperate granny - the little boy's only carer.

There are 150 children at Sarnelli, and giving each one expert care and a decent start in life costs less than £10 per child each day.

So much depends on Fr Mike, who celebrated 50 years of priesthood last year, and will reach 50 years of service in Thailand in 2016. He is 76, and the years are taking their toll.

Friends who have supported his work over the years are now passing away. Fr Mike is a worried man. He needs the same reassurance he gave those parents long ago - that we will look after his children when he is no longer with us.

Fr Mike Shea has given decades of devotion to children who have been orphaned, abandoned, abused. His faith and commitment to children command my respect and admiration - I am proud to call him a friend. Please find it in your heart to support his work by sponsoring a child at Sarnelli -

http://cts.vresp.com/c/?ThaiChildrensTrust/97b76e5ae3/51e59c7173/3358cd6120/utm_content=news%40indcatholicnews.com&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Text%20Version%20-%20Link%203&utm_campaign=Can%20Sarnelli%20survive%20-%20Your%20Latest%20Newsletter

so that he and the children can face the future with confidence.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Scadding

Director, Thai Children's Trust