Sharing: Shenzhen Volunteer

          After thinking to do a social work for a while for a while, I registered to be a Shenzhen Volunteer (http://www.sva.org.cn/) through their mobile application to be in a Youth Group for Saving the Environment last September 2019.   Shenzhen Volunteer has so many groups and volunteering works in schools, hospitals, libraries, etc.  It’s opened for Chinese and foreigners.  I was waiting for the volunteer card to start the voluntary work but then I found out that the card is available after 20 hours voluntary work and training.  

I did my first voluntary work at Luo Hu library last Nov 17, 2019 and then at Luo Hu hospital on Nov 18, 2019.  Both voluntary works are open for any volunteers.  There are voluntary works which is only open for their group members.  I planned to ask participants of university student’s summer camp on July 2019 to register as a Shenzhen volunteer because I didn’t know that it’s a mandatory for the students to be a volunteer, unfortunately the summer program was cancelled.  Students below 15 yo should be accompanied by a family member.

My first work at library is to check the order of books in the shelves for around half hour and then go to children library to keep the books in the shelves in order for the rest of the time (total 3 hours).  I met an 8 grade student who did 50 hours of voluntary work in the library even though the requirement from the school is only 24 hours/semester.  He can do voluntary work for 9 hours during week end because he did most of his homework at school and doesn’t have tutorial after school.  Several children at Holy Family Church can’t attend Sunday Mass because they have a lot of home work and tutorial on week end.  Many students were in queue before the opening of the library.  The situation in the children library lead me to suggest to our parishioners to arrange family visit to library, when the mother help/accompany the children to see the books, the father can do voluntary work or vice versa so all the family member will give up their cellphone for 3 hours because using cellphone is not allowed during the voluntary work.  

One of the volunteer at the hospital is grateful for my help and ask to help more often as they need 24 volunteers/day for both morning and afternoon session.  She recognized me as an Indonesian from my way of speaking Putonghua because her son’s mother in law is from Indonesia (As I remember, at least it’s the second time somebody said that I am from Indonesia because of my Putonghua).   She also recognized me as a Catholics because I write ”天主“(=God for the Catholics, the other denomination Church is using ”上帝“） on my motto in my We chat profile: “让我们用简单的爱去做简单的事情，使天主的爱彰显。” (Let’s do simple things with simple love to make God’s love visible.” )  She is a Protestant and leader of Luo Hu hospital volunteer.   She asked several questions including my work so I said I am doing voluntary work at the Church.  Another volunteer asked where is my husband, children and parent etc and at the end she said it’s very good that as an Indonesian I am willing to do this.  As a volunteer, we help the patient to use the machine to get the tag number, the print out of the check up result, etc.  

     As I posted our group picture on my We Chat wall at the end of the day, Ms. Wu and Mrs. Cheng said they were at Luo Hu hospital that day.  Mrs. Cheng is accompanying her mother in law so I asked Ms. Wu to visit together on Nov 20, 2019.   I also asked Ms. Wu to visit Mrs. Ye.   I led a prayer for Mrs. Ye with her family member and Ms. Wu as she will have surgery the next day.  I believe God led me to visit and pray for Mrs. Ye through my voluntary work because I talked with Mrs. Cheng on Nov 16 evening after Mass and she didn’t say that Mrs. Ye would be hospitalized the next day.   Besides, Mrs. Ye asked Fr. Lu to say a Mass for her healing but Fr. Lu even asked me whom I would visit when I said I would go to hospital so I told him that I would do volunteer work.   

     Becoming a Shenzhen Volunteer reminded me when Fr.Lu accompanied me to go to bus stop after our first meeting last August 30, he said “Start here”, and then pointed out a sign on the wall. https://anastasialindawatimm.blogspot.com/2012/09/sharing-first-week-end-in-shenzhen.html  I started to help at Holy Family Church with broken Putonghua fresh from the language school  then reach out to bigger Catholic community in China both by my physical and virtual presence and now, going out to the larger community with Indonesian accent Putonghua.  I believe all of this is God’s providence for my mission in China.  

Hong Kong, Nov 20, 2019

Sr. Anastasia B. Lindawati, M.M.

Let’s help each other to live less waste living for a better world.


Nov 26, 2019:
I have been doing volunteer work  four time total 15 hours till today. During the last session, a guy asked me to accompany his mother, with heart problem, while he go out to buy something for his daughter and a woman asked me to help her to get tag number, see the doctor and pay the bill as she got dizzy while waiting her daughter in endoscopy room.  I joined Luo Hu hospital and Shenzhen People’s Hospital Volunteer group and waiting approval to change from the Youth Group for Saving the Environment to another two hospital volunteer groups.