Supporting Global Workers overseas is very expensive. It would be a better use of funds and energy if we only supported people from that cultural context. This is absolutely a valid argument for why one country should not send workers to another. It’s true, but not totally. The word “missions” is loaded and rightfully so.… Read More Front Line Fraternity
When you drop the “V” word around most charities, we find ourselves thrown into impassioned conversations about volunteer recruitment, volunteer training, volunteer retention, volunteer engagement, and volunteer liability. In this flurry of volunteer utilization / mobilization / optimization talk, we rarely hear the conversation turn towards personal volunteering. Beyond volunteers as tools, we’re left with… Read More Volunteerism
To cross the world used to take months on steam ships and now we can do it in a day while making poor food choices and watching movies. It’s an amazing time to be alive. Air travel has made the world smaller – it has also made a new venue in which to have awkward… Read More The Underside of Flying List
In life, there are going to be seasons of feasts, seasons of regular meals, and seasons of snacks. It sounds simple but this insight from John Caplin, an organizational coach who has encouraged us greatly, has shaped much of our thinking in recent years. We’ve used this lens in how we parent, how we engage… Read More Skimming
After 6 weeks on Canada’s West Coast, we’re back in the Big Mango, and we’re trying to parent our way through the cultural flip-flop! For our kids to be culturally aware and socially intelligent is a high priority for us. Equipping them with tools to navigate their fluid cultural identities needs to be one of… Read More Thailanada
On April 26 we welcomed our third child into this wondrous world of ours. She’s healthy and tenacious and generally stupendous! We love her dearly. Naming her was a journey, and though some may contend that a rose by any other name is still a rose, it took us the entire 9 months to name… Read More Our Daughter, the King of the Birds
There’s a joke about the evolution of parenting: new parents see their first child eat dirt and so they rush the child to the doctor only to be assured the child will in fact be fine. Time passes and they have a second child who, as so many children do, also eats dirt. The parents… Read More The Basketball
Christmas in Bangkok this year is really quite spectacular. Last year was our first Christmas here in Thailand and because of the year of mourning in honour of His Majesty King Rama IX, all celebrations were rather muted. This year however, Bangkok is all lit up! Almost every grocery store has a big tree decked… Read More Selfies, Santa, and a Saviour
Matthew here to talk about a potential growth moment I’m navigating that started with my language class buddy dropping the class and then the country. We’ll call him Q (because, thanks to Bond, it sounds mysterious). Q and I have sat together in class for about 2 months now. We talk on breaks and we… Read More Why I’m NOT Writing my Language Exam
It was 11 years ago today that I (Amber) signed my first contract with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) to be a Global Worker. Writing that out… makes me feel old. In working with PAOC, I’ve served as a Global Worker overseas and with Summit Pacific College’s OMEGA Program. When I truly reflect on… Read More A DECADE +
