President Bush arrived in Bangkok's largest slum Thursday morning seven minutes early and in a black armored stretch Cadillac. Protected by a 40-car motorcade, some 200 Thai police officers, the U.S. Secret Service and its rooftop military snipers, the presidential limo parked in a closed-off white tent pitched near the end of a slum street.

A single flap opened onto the grounds of the Rev. Joseph H. Maier's Mercy Centre charity, a perennial slum oasis blooming with hundreds of happy orphans and HIV-infected kids.

"He walked up and said 'Howdy' or something like that," recalled the 69-year-old American Catholic priest known in Thailand as Father Joe. "He was very gracious, very pleasant, very, um, how do you say ... 'country.' More of a rough diamond than, say, a British diplomat."

British diplomats and Thai royalty have often visited the charity famous for its 30 slum preschools, orphanages, AIDS hospices and the irreverent Father Joe, a native of Longview, Wash., who has lived for 35 years among the poorest of the poor in Bangkok's squalid slums.

Bush and Eric G. John, the U.S. ambassador to Thailand, toured the Mercy Centre for 45 minutes with Father Joe and Mercy's director Usanee Janngeon, a London-trained nurse. Janngeon flew back early from the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City for Bush's visit.

Together they toured Mercy's art and graphics classes, its orphanages, schools, where Bush was entertained by Mercy's award-winning Thai dancers and schoolchildren's songs. In the adult AIDS ward, where emaciated victims lay in adult-sized diapers, Bush waved off the latex gloves and surgical masks that the White House had preordered. Instead, he leaned in unprotected to shake hands and hug Mercy's frail patients.

"That was totally cool," Maier said. "I might not agree with all of his politics, but that was way cool."

Afterward, Bush asked Janngeon, "How much does it cost to run this place? How much (money) do you need?"

Janngeon answered $3.4 million each year: "And to be completely honest with you we don't have enough money."

Maier said Bush talked to them about the $48 million global AIDS relief package that he'd signed into law one week earlier, then asked, "So how can we help?"

When Janngeon hesitated, Bush jumped in. "This is your chance," he told her. "You better tell me now."

As Maier recounted this conversation during a phone interview Thursday evening from Thailand, he groaned. A scrawl on the local TV news had reported that Bush offered the Mercy Centre, also known as the Human Development Foundation, 114 million Thai baht, the equivalent of $3.4 million.

Later, after Maier had corrected the erroneous report, he explained. "President Bush only offered to look into helping us. No money, nothing — nothing — was promised."

The Mercy Centre has received grant money from the U.S. Agency for International Development in the past.

During his 45-minute visit Bush told Maier he respected the work of "faith-based" charities, such as Mercy. Maier explained that while Mercy's founders, he and Macau-born Sister Maria Chantavarodom, were Christians, Mercy was ecumenical in its faith. Most of its students, patients, staff and its director, Janngeon, are like 95 percent of Thailand's residents. They are Theravada Buddhists.

However, Janngeon politely explained to Bush, she, too, is faith-based.

"I believe in the children," she said. "I believe in the power of goodness. I believe in tomorrow."

Former Honolulu Advertiser reporter Greg Barrett is the author of "The Gospel of Father Joe: Revolutions and Revelations in the Slums of Bangkok"; http://TheGospelofFatherJoe.com.