Description
| - Father Joseph (Joe) H. Maier, C.Ss. R., (31 October 1939-) is an American Redemptorist priest who lives and works in the Klong Toey slums of Bangkok, Thailand, where he co-founded the Human Development Foundation (HDF-Mercy Centre) with Sister Maria Chantavarodom in 1973. For over 35 years, he has administered to Bangkok's poorest, providing vulnerable children and families alternatives to and haven from drugs, violence, sex abuse and prostitution in the squatter slums.
Joseph Maier was born at Cowlitz General in Longview, Washington in 1939, the son of a Catholic mother, Helen Childs Maier, and a German Lutheran, George Maier. His parents separated when Maier was 5 years old, and later divorced. Maier enrolled in a Redemptorist seminary in California as a high school freshman and was assigned to Bangkok upon completion of his studies.
Father Joe first arrived in Thailand in 1967. He ministered in northern Isan and to the Hmong in Laos before settling permanently in Bangkok's ...
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