My local church had been working with a Chinese NGO, Home of Hope (HoH), for several years, and there arose an opportunity to participate in a humanitarian trip to support their end-of-year social service efforts. I went on the trip with 18 other churchmates.

In preparation for the trip, we raised funds to supply provisions to HoH and designed games to entertain the schoolchildren HoH was serving. We also brushed up on our Mandarin so that we could relate better to the children and their families.

While I'm not typically a fan of overseas humanitarian trips, I was thankful for the opportunity to learn and to contribute the little I have.