Hmawbi Orphanage and Children

Sister Dorothy and myself being open with each other.

The Sisters, The Fathers and the Children at the opening
The Children and Sisters Ann Shwe Ann Marie

The children's temporarysleeping quarters


The joy of the children as they open the first Christmas presents they have ever had.

Hello, In six days times our parish in Crowthorne and Sandhurst will be starting a Mission, which will be the first they have had for over twenty years. The Mission will be given by a Fr Tim Buckley who is a Redemptorist. So as you can imagine these next few weeks will be a very busy time for me, preparing and making sure everything runs smoothly when it begins.

Since I have come back from Myanmar I have had eight people who have died in the parish, a couple of weddings and a few baptisms and with Sister Geraldine staying with me on an off for eight weeks, the last two months have been quite hetic.

The Hatch Match and Dispatch that is the normal routine of a priests life can at times be very dibilitating for a priest, for one moment he is happy for the people whose child is being baptised or the couple being married, then saddened by the death of a parishioner and dealing with those who are bereaved.

This Bank Holiday Monday 25th May we hold our annual Donkey Derby, which is our main fund raising for the year. We need this money this year as we have incurred a big expense of £50.000 for the repair of the roof, that was just about going to cave in. This is why I have really had no time to update the blog as I would have liked.

I have placed some of the pictures that I took of the opening of the orphanage. I must thank all those people who have spent time and gave lots of monies towards our parish project. They have been most generous in their giving, and may God bless them. For myself the most rewarding aspect of this project is not the sense of achivement but the great reward of all our efforts, the smiling faces of the children we have helped to house and give a home to. That will be the lasting memory of my visit to Hmawbi in Myanmar.