by Dr. Iain
Corness
Peder Jorgensen is a Danish retiree who has spent more
than 22 years living in Thailand amongst some of the neediest people in
the Kingdom. During the first two years he had problems with the language
and was tempted to go back as he found life here very difficult.
“Without the language you are on the outside, but now I feel more at
home here than in Denmark.”
Originally, in his native Denmark, he was a social
worker, married to a nurse. By the time he was 26 they were working and
had two children, but despite the appearances of being the settled, Peder
Jorgensen had something else beating his drum. Jorgen was a committed
Christian. In fact that calling had come to him as still a schoolchild,
giving him an interest in other countries and in Christian missions. Peder
explains it thus, “Being a Christian means you take responsibility for
your fellow man. You cannot be indifferent to people in distress. You
can’t change the world, but you can help a few people and make a better
future for them. In helping a few, you are also helping the society.”
It was this Christian connection that led him to Dr.
Chris Maddox, the superintendent of a Christian Hospital in northern
Thailand, a man for whom Peder still has the greatest admiration, but now
a very elderly gentleman living in Chiang Mai.
In 1962, Peder and his wife came to Thailand and went
up-country to work for Dr. Maddox. Peder in his role as a social worker,
dealing with the hospital’s 3000 leprosy patients, while his wife worked
as a midwife in the region.
Life went on, his wife had a third child, and the
children were sent to Malaysia to boarding school in the Cameroon
Highlands, there being nothing suitable for expat children in those days.
However, the schooling there only went till the child was 12 years old,
and the Jorgensens had to make a huge decision. Send the children back to
Denmark as boarders, or go back themselves as one family. “I wanted the
children to be Danish.” Peder did not discuss the financial aspects
involved in that decision, but Christian missions are a calling, not a
career pathway to riches, and I am sure that also prompted their return as
a family to Denmark in 1971.
During the next 13 years he continued with his
Christian connections and met the general secretary of the Norwegian
Mission Society who was very interested to hear that he had worked in
rural Thailand as they were looking at the logistics of opening a mission
themselves in Esarn.
The upshot of this was his being asked to return to
Thailand and open a mission in Ubon Ratchatanee, which he did in 1984.
This time the thrust was not the leper colonies, but towards youth
education. He was approached by one teacher who had a bright lad in the
class, but from an extremely poor family. This boy’s education would
shortly cease through lack of finances, could Peder do something about it?
He did, by contacting the local abbot in the temple and arranging for the
boy to stay there free of charge. He would have whatever food was left
over after the monks had eaten. It was a small start, but meant that the
boy could continue at school.
It was not long before this scheme became known and
soon he had boys staying in temples all over the district, but Peder knew
this was neither very successful or equitable. For one, sometimes the
children had to go hungry if the monks had not collected much alms that
day and secondly, many of the temples were under construction and the boys
were expected to help in the building work after returning from school,
and ended up too tired to do their homework. However, there was a third
problem. There were deserving bright girls as well as boys, but girls
could not stay at the temples. The answer was a hostel.
Peder built that hostel. A housing unit for 45 needy
school children - 30 girls and 15 boys. There was a good sociological
reason for the preponderance of girls. In those days high school education
was generally thought of as the province of the male students and the
girls were taken out of school for domestic reasons, a situation that did
not reflect the abilities of the females. The contact with the hostel is
continuing today, with Peder arranging for tertiary education for some of
his charges from the original hostel.
This concept and the reasons for it did not go
un-noticed by the Thai authorities either, with Peder being awarded a
Ministry of Education citation in 1992, the only foreigner to receive one
that year.
However, all good things must come to an end, it is
said, and for Peder and his wife, the good times in Ubon Ratchatanee
Province came to an end with Peder breaking his hip after falling from a
ladder in 1997. This necessitated many operations and resulted in his
returning to Denmark for further surgery and finally accepting early
retirement. However, as Peder says, “Retirement is not an aim in itself.
I want to write a book (on his times in Thailand) as I have lots of notes.
I’ve had a good and interesting life.”
Books are a special interest to Peder, “Since
childhood, I’ve always been afraid of people who don’t read books.
They miss out on so much.” His own favourite reading includes history
and a good novel.
While he would have liked to retire in Thailand, his grandchildren keep
him based in Denmark so these days he organizes tours for Scandinavian
tourists and accompanies them to give the first-timers the benefit of his
experience of Thailand that covers a span of 40 years. And just by the
way, this time he brought over a shipment of school materials for the
Thai-Danish Friendship Association too. A truly remarkable man.
