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Today we had our first Ash Wednesday service at the St. Jude Thaddeus School site. It was something of a test run to see how many people wanted to come, could find St. Jude School, and would brave the heat after a 97ºF afternoon. They came. We used basically every chair the school had and people were still standing.
In previous years we had two Ash Wednesday services, on opposite sides of town, but this year just the one gathering and it was crowded.
I told the priest to keep the homily short and he did.
Around the world, Ash Wednesday is one of the most well attended religious services and we certainly had an outpouring for our English Catholic Community.
None of these options are very good, but it seems the workmen who put down the yellow tactile tiles to guide blind people:
• had no idea what the yellow tiles are used for, OR,
• they knew the purpose of the special tiles but no one told them to go around the trees, OR,
• they just didn’t care that they were making life worse for blind people.
My birthday was last Saturday, a week ago, when I was in Bangkok to get a new visa. I didn’t think much about my birthday then and certainly not much since then, but today at the end of mass some of the parishioners surprised me with a cake!
These are some typical street vendors who have claimed a space at the entrance to Wat Sansam Kosal in Boeung Tum Pun. On the left is a woman selling lotus bulbs and flowers to people entering the wat (pagoda), and on the right is a man selling bananas to those merely passing by.
26 February was the official end of Phase 4 of the Deaf Leadership Training Program and there was a graduation celebration and lunch together for the DLTP team and their trainees and the DDP management team.
Early in the morning, at DDP, the DLTP team prepared materials for the end of this phase of their training.
Today we had a graduation ceremony and lunch for the deaf people who participated in the yearlong Deaf Leadership Training Program. Before giving out certificates, we invited Chum Narith to speak about his new role as the first deaf member of the DDP management team.
Today this sign was up in front of one of the six elevators in the building where I live. I really hope they are using steel cables rather than ropes. It is interesting to see the various different words U.S. English and other Englishes use for the same reality.