Our children rushed home from school last Friday afternoon to receive a group of special guests – The US Third Marine Expeditionary Force Band – a traditional 12-piece military marching band of the highest caliber and spirit.

This past week Israeli Ambassador H.E. Itzhak Shoham and his wife Madam Dalit Shoham made a special visit to our Mercy Centre to meet the students who attend our Janusz Korcack School for Street Children.

Her dowry was a nice gold chain and sacred medal. His? A threat: a knife and a gun displayed on the table in front of him – a reminder of what would happen if he didn’t take his vows seriously.

He doesn't wear amulets, but says his tattoos are the best on the planet. Amulets, nowadays, can be fake, or even worse – not even blessed, no power. You can't be too careful. So tattoos are safer. His Chinese dad told him that long ago.

This is the second recent news article about our work with the Moken – the ethnic Sea Gypsies – on Koh Lao, an island in Ranong Province. Both articles focus on the plight of these poor island villagers who have lost much of their past and

Village elder and midwife Liya Pramongkit, skin brown and furrowed as a walnut, spent her early life living as a nomad aboard handcrafted wooden boats called kabang. They were fashioned from giant rainforest logs; planking held together with vines.