Siam-Care often welcomes volunteers who help with the work for a certain period. Gonneke is one of them and he would like to share about her adventure.
My name is Gonneke Dekker and I live in Bangkok since July 2016 with my husband and three daughters. We are a so called ‘expat-family’, send by the company of my husband. I was curious if there were more Christians living in Bangkok, so I googled the next words; Christians, Dutch and Bangkok and I found Jan-Peter & Natasja Kelder. Immediately I was curious about their job at Siam Care. When I was a week in Bangkok, preparing our live there, I send them a message to meet them. They reacted very enthusiastic.
That was the first contact! Now a half year later I’m going once a week to the office of Siam Care. Every morning the team start with reading the Bible, talk about what we read and pray for the coming day. Of course this is in Thai and no, I don’t speak Thai. Thankfully, Jan-Peter and Natasja translate the conversation, so I can communicate with the team.
Visit families and count money
Once per month the team makes a planning for the next month and I follow this program. Regularly I’ve been visiting the families who are supported by Siam Care. Those visits leaves every time a big impression on me. Small huts, only reach by rotten planks and ‘inside’ there is practically nothing. But the families are so grateful and enjoying the visit and so do I. I don’t have much to offer, except my time and show them that they’re worthy! On other days I do office jobs, think of sorting clothes, counting money from donation boxes, preparing letters for sponsors and do translations.
Most special experience
The most special experience was the Christmas celebration at the men’s prison. In the preparation we (I was with my parents) received a A4 paper with Thais Christmas songs, phonetic written and the YouTube links to practice. When we arrived at the prison, there were 50 men, most of them HIV infected. We sang the songs for them, told the Christmas gospel and gave them Christmas gifts. One man told us that he didn’t have had any visitors in the last two years, so he was very thankful for this Christmas celebration.
Siam Care does very valuable work and I’m thankful that I may partaker there!
