Hello!
We are so excited you’re interested in knowing more about Inspire, our homeschool helper program in Chiang Mai, Thailand. If you are interested in coming to Thailand to be a homeschool helper, please keep reading for more details. If you’re a missionary family working in Thailand and are interested in having a homeschool helper, skim through the information below for an overview of the program and then please contact us to learn more and see if you'd be a good fit for the program.

Unique

Ministry

​Opportunity

Inspire gives you the opportunity to serve a missionary family on the field while experiencing life in another culture and everyday life on the mission field. It provides a way to be immediately useful in ministry on the field, with the goal of supporting, strengthening and furthering other missionaries’ ministries. Whether you’re interested in pursuing full-time missions work, or just want the (amazing) opportunity of experiencing another culture while giving an invaluable service to a family on the field, this experience will give you insight into what it’s really like to live and serve on the mission field, either for your future plans, or as you interact with missionaries sent from your home church, deepening your ability to encourage and support them in the future.

Inspire is a dual purpose program. It was conceived as a way to help missionaries on the field who needed a little extra help or margin for a variety of reasons - from language learning or developing a new ministry, to recovering from trauma/stress/burn-out or needing extra help with younger kids. As it developed, we realized it also had the added benefit of giving the people coming over a way to experience “real life” on the field, the ins and outs, highs and lows, frustrations and complications. This is not an action-packed week-long VBS experience, but everyday life on the mission field, with unique and interesting places to explore, alongside the challenges and struggles of everyday life in another culture.

The following information will give you a quick overview of our vision for the program, what you can expect and how to prepare mentally, emotionally and practically.

Overview:

The program will be unique for each person who comes over, in that, each family being served will have different needs and situations. However, some basics will remain the same for all. The family is responsible for providing the curriculum and an overview of how they would like it taught. In some instances you may be working with some children while a parent works with the others, or you may be solely responsible for the teaching while the parents do work (or language learning, etc.) outside the home. The family will work out with you what hours they’d like you to teach (around 6-7 hours/weekday including lunch, minus the time for visa requirements) and will be responsible to get you to their home and back. You may be asked to teach a specific child exclusively, a range of ages and grade levels or work with younger kids most days and a group of older ones from multiple families a few days a week. As with all areas of the mission field, having flexibility and an open mind will be your greatest benefit and asset to becoming comfortable and having a good experience. 

You will need a visa to stay in Thailand for a year, which can be done in one of two ways. You can choose to come on a language visa and take classes to learn Thai, or you can get a self-defense visa taking MuayThai (traditional Thai kick-boxing) classes.

There will be multiple people to support you while you’re here: we will be you primary point of contact for life details, the family you're serving will be your point of contact for the homeschool details, and your home church (and a specific contact person from that church) will provide support as they would other missionaries sent from your congregation, through prayer, possible financial support, encouragement and periodically touching base with you about your general well-being. 

​You should stay vigilant to regularly communicate with each of these support units about how you’re doing, problems you’re encountering or concerns you have with whomever is in charge of that area. If, after talking with the appropriate person, you feel the situation should be addressed further, then you can use the other two entities as a secondary way to help you work through the situation. We will always be there to help you talk through anything you need to talk through or help you figure out who to talk to about it. With this multi-unit structure, we hope you will have the resources you need and the support of multiple people to go to when you need it.

Our Responsibilities:

• Oversee the general details of the program.
• Arrange housing.
• Arrange one-year visa.
• Initial meetings about culture, mind-set, and expectations on both sides.
• Regular continuing meetings to touch base.
• Coordinate communication between all involved.
• Touchstone for everyone for how it’s going throughout the year.
• Help you get acclimated to life here.
• Go with you for initial grocery shopping at the market and other stores so you understand how they work and can readily get supplies and food.
• Show you where and how to pay bills such as electric, phone, rent, etc.
• Give you options for Sunday morning worship, mid-week Bible studies and other fellowship.
• Help you find other volunteer work you can be involved with during your free time if you’re so inclined, eg. helping at an orphanage, refugee work, red light district, etc.

Missionary Family’s Responsibilities: 

• Have curriculum for each child and specifics on how you want your children taught (eg. tests/no tests, teach precisely what’s in the book and get through the curriculum/or tangents are encouraged, etc.)
• Provide the resources and school supplies needed for your helper to do their job.
• Have an area available to homeschool (i.e. the helper won’t be required to use their home)
• Communicate regularly with your helper about how they’re doing, how the kids are doing and if anything needs addressed, etc.
• Provide transportation to and from your house for the helper, whether through a Grab ride or by picking them up, when they are coming to teach.
• Provide lunch with your children or family during the days they work.
• Recognize your helper will also have language or MuayThai classes that they need to attend for their visa requirements.
• If you’d like them to grade and prepare lessons, they may need to spend less time teaching.
• Be there to encourage and support your helper as part of your team.

Helper’s Responsibilities: 

• Homeschooling work with the family you’re paired with.
• Work within the style and framework of your family’s preferences and goals for homeschool.
• Like a job, your responsibilities are to the family you’re helping during the agreed upon times for homeschool, after those times your time is your own.
• If you want to take time off to travel, arrange with the family you’re helping the best time to do this. Hopefully, everyone can be flexible in this area. Just like any job, you won’t be expected to work without any time off. But, just like any missionary, you will be expected to be responsible to those providing your support to do the ministry you’ve raised support to do.

​Everyday life:

• Bills and rent will be paid from the support money you’ve raised.
• Meals - Know how to cook (at least the basics) or be willing to eat Thai food from nearby sellers everyday. There aren’t a lot of instant Western food options at the grocery stores and what Western food is available is more expensive.

Transportation around the city (the trip to/from your homeschool family’s house will be provided by them). This is easily and safely accomplished with an app called Grab, but you can pursue getting a motorcycle (local drivers license needed).

Fellowship

• Get involved with community beyond just us and your homeschooling family through church groups, local friends, etc.  You can be as involved with groups as much as you wish, but remember developing a community of people around you is your responsibility. Like going to college or moving to another city for a job, getting to know people is important. We can help you find places to do this, but your social interaction is not ultimately dependent on us or your homeschool family. 
• Be willing to have friend groups outside of your normal age group and culture group. Most college age people are away at college (but not all!), and can therefore be hard to find on the field, but there are a lot of other people to fellowship with and options for involvement and community. Also expect to meet missionaries from all over the earth in this city, not just North America.

Raising Support for your expenses

• Lance will give you a spread sheet of expenses to budget for. This is a guideline, but other expense can (and probably will) come up.
• There are one-time up front costs, and then monthly costs - both must be taken into consideration when communicating with potential supporters.

Joint Responsibilities:

• Mutually agree upon a timeframe that will work well for everyone for teaching.
• Seek to serve each other.
• Have appropriate boundaries with respect to time, commitments and requests.
• Seek to communicate about problems, concerns and everyday life.
• Don’t let things snowball by not communicating.
• Discuss struggles so we can honor God in our relationships.
• Be flexible! That’s what life on the field is all about.
• Adjust expectations as life impels.
• Remember we are here to minister to each other.

There are so many areas and details that we just can’t include (while still keeping your attention, if we haven’t lost it already.) If you’re interested in learning more, please contact us to set up an initial video call.

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Things to think about:

• - If you enjoy learning about other ways of life, exploring new things and are excited to serve in this situation, you’re probably a good candidate for this program.
• - This is a missionary position and you will need to raise support for your time of service here.
• - You will be working with kids. We will try to match you with your preferred age range where possible (elementary, middle or high school), but if you don’t like kids of any age, you probably should reconsider.
• - If you can work on adapting to new situations and can accept that “different from your culture” doesn’t mean wrong it just means different, you will have a better experience.
• - You may have to try new foods and have new experiences that will stretch your comfort zone. If you absolutely don’t like experiencing new things, you should seek counsel from someone who knows you well, to determine if this is a good option for you.
• - ​You will definitely be able to make friends for fellowship and to develop community if you try, however, they may not be the age or demographic you’ve had in the past.​

• - We will definitely be here to help you with problems, act as liaisons between the family you’re helping or anyone you need an intermediary for, and to show you where to find resources with any issue you want solved, but we won’t be here to do it for you. If you’ve never lived on your own before, we are excited to help and support you as you launch into this new phase of life, but we expect you to approach this as an adult who is responsible for your life. (As you would be in college, guidelines in place and support if needed, but your life is also your responsibility.)
• - If you’re nervous about providing your own meals, we can talk more about this to give you an idea of what’s available here and what your options are. Don’t let this be a deterrent to coming unless you hate trying new foods, know you absolutely can’t prepare anything for yourself, and/or can’t raise enough support to buy the Western food available.
• - ​We are so excited for you to come, the family you’ll be helping is excited to have your help, and we are assuming you’re excited to come as well! However, we fully recognize that we’re all human and, as such, will make mistakes and not always agree with each other. We hope we can all have the attitude of service and grace in each situation, looking to honor God in our interactions and discussions.​

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​As we proceed:

• - Let us know if you’re interested in coming as soon as you make the decision so you have plenty of time to ask questions and start raising support.
• - Keep in mind, there is a 12-15 hour time difference between us depending on where in the States you live, so quite often questions or correspondence will have a 24-hour turn-over time for responses. 2:00pm our afternoon is 2:00am EST the same day when it’s not daylight savings. During daylight savings, our 2:00pm is 3:00am EST. (You’re behind us approx. a half a day.)
• - Please (please, please) let us know of any concerns, problems or issues you have on your mind. It’s better to figure out something beforehand than find out it’s not solvable once you get here. It also may not be an issue at all, but if we don’t know what you’re wondering about, we won’t be able to help you.
• ​- Once you are considering coming, we’d love to set up a video call to cover a lot of questions on both sides quickly and so we can give you a verbal overview which’ll be a lot more comprehensive and give you a better idea than trying to type all of this.

Things we want from you initially:

• - A video call to meet you, discuss the program and answer any questions you have.
• - Apply and be accepted as a short-termer.
• - A letter of recommendation from your pastor, youth pastor or another adult who knows you well whom you’ve worked with in ministry situations.
• - The blessing of your church that they support you coming over. We also understand extenuating circumstances however, and if you are new to your church or have some other situation, talk to us about this. 
• - Communication, communication, communication! Don’t assume something will or won’t be a problem. The more we know about you ahead of time the better your time here will be. There are families on the field here with multiple problems ranging from food allergies to physical disabilities. If you have an issue, it may not keep you from coming but you don’t want to get here and find out you can’t be here comfortably or safely. Also, the more aligned your expectations are the better your experience will be. (We are not the type to say no to a lot of things, but we can’t help you if we don’t know of the problem.) That said, you’re coming to serve in a country not as comfortable as what you’re used to, so a level of discomfort is unavoidable.

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Things you’ll need eventually:

• - A valid passport with at least 6 months left before it expires at the time you plan to enter Thailand (August).
• - Approved for a language or self-defense visa - we’ll walk you through these steps.
• - ​Fully funded to stay here one year as per Lance’s spreadsheet of expenses.