Nick and Laura Armstrong are the co-directors of Glocal Community Partners. After living in Indonesia for 23 years where they worked in relief/development (Nick) and education (Laura) as well as raised their two children, they came back to Boise in 2013. In that transition, God laid on their hearts to work with forcibly displaced people who have come to Boise to find safety, freedom and healing. With that in mind, Glocal was started with the aim of mobilizing, training and connecting volunteers with these forcibly displaced people to help foster friendship. Serving and working with forcibly displaced people has become their heart work where they have learned they receive much more than they give.
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Michelle has been friends with Nick and Laura for close to 20 years and was blessed to join them in the early days of Glocal Community Partners. She has a passion for working across cultures after living in Mexico and traveling extensively for business with HP. “I have seen the beauty of the God’s people across the world and enjoyed helping people learn about each other and to live, play and work together in harmony.” In addition to helping with administrative work and planning, Michelle has facilitated the baby shower ministry, blessing new moms that have come through the refugee process and their babies and families.
Carolyn is originally from Idaho and has worked in agriculture/horticulture for 20+ years. She has been working with refugees since 2013 and joined the Glocal staff in 2017. Her passion for other cultures was discovered while working in agriculture development overseas in 2003. While in Haiti the experience did two things. Opened her eyes to the beauty of God’s creation in cultures, but also revealed how hard it is to live as a foreigner! Now back home she hopes to use her experience to help New Americans feel welcome and facilitate bridges of friendship with the church. If you’d like current updates on the garden, consider subscribing (link) to receive Carolyn’s newsletter (4-5 letters/year).
Berna and her late husband, Dar, started as a young pilot/mechanic family with Mission Aviation Fellowship in Indonesia in the early 70's. They were stationed and moved from one flight program to another as they were needed. After her husband passed she continued to work and lived in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and even back in Indonesia. Her last assignment was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where she worked with refugees who were mostly from Myanmar. She joined Glocal in 2017. Teaching English to the refugee women and helping families when there's a need is her main contribution.
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John and Nancy Hook joined Glocal Community Partners in March 2020, after serving 37 years with Mission Aviation Fellowship as a pilot/mechanic family. The Hooks have a heart for service, and especially for working with people from foreign cultures. We have been blessed to live overseas and learn from cross cultural life experiences first hand. We desire to come alongside New Americans as they transition to a new culture and life in the USA, and help support them and meet their needs however we can.
Melissa recently joined Glocal as the Assistant Coordinator for the Glocal Friendship Team program, but has been serving in the English program for 3 years, as well as walking alongside several New American families in friendship. She and her husband, James and their three kids lived in Morocco for 8 years, serving with Gateway Medical Alliance, an NGO which shares healthcare resources to countries all over the world. They also volunteered with World Relief in Washington state prior to that. Melissa feels passionate about connecting New Americans to families who will walk alongside them in friendship, having herself experienced the joy and richness that comes from these cross cultural friendships.
Having recently returned to Idaho after 20 years of living cross-culturally in Asia, Tamara is excited to join the Glocal team. She loves people, has a compassionate heart, and enjoys learning about new cultures. Her marriage and family motto is “Do Everything In Love” (from 1 Corinthians 16:14). Tamara knows firsthand the struggles and challenges of trying to communicate in a new language, build new friendships, and learn the new routines, traditions, and way of life in a new culture. She hopes that her skills as an educator and her experience living cross-culturally will help her serve, connect, and love the New Americans coming to, and living in, the Treasure Valley. Tamara desires to help wherever she is needed, beginning with the English language program and baby shower ministry. Tamara and her husband, Steve, have three children.
Annie is originally from North Dakota and is a first generation American. Her parents fled Cambodia in 1979 after the Khmer Rouge took over the country. They resettled in ND after they were sponsored by Thurston and Christine Nelson, members of a local church. Annie and her husband, Tim, moved to Idaho in 2007. After working several years as a physician assistant, she transitioned to be a stay-at-home parent. They have 3 sons who keep them very busy. Annie has been a Glocal Friendship Partner since 2015 and in the fall of 2021 joined the team, providing administrative support. It’s been an honor and joy for her to serve New Americans in the Treasure Valley.
Catherine is originally from South Carolina and learned to love the nations through her parents' support of foreign missionaries. Her father, a native of México, was introduced to the Gospel through missionaries, who led him to a college in SC where he met Catherine's mother. After Catherine married and finished her Accounting degree at East Tennessee State University, she worked at Eastman Chemical Company in Internal Audit and as a General Accountant overseeing a few foreign entities. Her husband's military orders sent them West, and they settled in Boise in 2019. Catherine enjoys homeschooling their 3 children and bookkeeping for Glocal.