Welcome to the YiA blog!

Welcome!

While the idea for this blog started nearly a year ago (and there are some old posts around from back then) this is the *official launch* of the Youth in Asia blog. Yay!

It’s an appropriate moment for it. Right now four of us are sitting in an icecream parlour in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Christina is from the USA but lives in Phnom Penh where she is the Director of a city-wide expat youth ministry sponsored by two international churches. Tanya is from Australia, but is a youth worker with an international church in Beijing, China. Hannah is a youth worker from New Zealand, living in Cambodia for a year. Nathaniel is a youth worker from Sydney, Australia, spending his summer break in Cambodia.

The four of us met at Christina’s high school youth camp at Sihanoukville. The conversations that have followed in the ten days since we met line up perfectly with the heart of the Youth in Asia vision. We are youth workers first, with (different) passions for Asia, and we have all been encouraged by our time of connection.

Our hope for this blog is that is fostered just this sort of interaction – the sort of fellowship that builds and encourages, making us more effective and sustainable in our ministries.

So, welcome!

And, of course, we can’t end without a hearty shout out to some AWESOME youth groups! We love you guys :)

Cross Culture (Phnom Penh)
Solar (Phnom Penh)
KirkYouth (Sydney)
SYC Kahu Kura (Christchurch)
Rev (Beijing)
Bongos (Beijing)
ReGen (Beijing)
Crossroads (Beijing)
OneWay (Beijing)

 

So what is this anyway?

This is the start of something.
This is a place to share.
This is resources and ideas.
This is where “Youthnasia” starts.

This blog is a combination of the thoughts of several youth workers across Asia with a focus on TCKs. The longterm goal is to support youth workers already in the field (to help them stay in the field, bearing good fruit) and to find and develop new youth workers.

More broadly, this blog will hopefully become a point of contact for anyone interested in youth work anywhere in Asia. The vision of Youthnasia (or Youth-in-Asia, YiA, and whatever else you may want to call it) is to build youth work across Asia. That includes work with local communities and developing local leadership, as well as work with TCKs, and supporting the people who work with them.

The vision is HUGE and I’m sure will always be several steps ahead of where we are on the ground, but that’s okay. It means we’ll keep running, dreaming, and growing.