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.
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
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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:
Missionary Family’s Responsibilities:
Helper’s Responsibilities:
Everyday life:
Fellowship
Raising Support for your expenses
Joint Responsibilities:
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.
- 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.
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.
Things to think about:
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As we proceed:
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Things we want from you initially:
Things you’ll need eventually:
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