Welcome to Season 1, Episode 4 of the Think Orphan podcast. In Episode 4, Todd Guckenberger, Executive Director of Back2Back Ministries, joins Phil and Kelly to discuss issues surrounding orphanages, mission trips, and a 5-Point Development Plan for every child in B2B’s care. B2B works in Mexico, Haiti, and India.
In this week’s episode you will discover:
- The Role of Short Term Mission Trips in Orphan Care
- Trauma Competent Awareness and Training
- Back2Back’s Holistic Orphan Care model and Strong Families Program
- The Family Based Environment across the orphan spectrum
- The Greatest Need for Orphan Care Organizations
- The Orphanage Debate
Links from the show:
Connect with Back2Back Ministries at Twitter and Facebook
For the following resources, please contact Julie Cooper at Back2Back
- Back2Back Partnership Agreement
- Back2Back 5 Point Child Development Plan
- Child Status Index
- Supporting docs to the TCC training.
Todd’s Podcast recommendations: Craig Groeschel, Andy Stanley and Entreleadership
This episode was really thought provoking to me and I will definitely give it a second listen. I saw what Todd was saying with pendulum swinging from where it was eight years ago. I certainly have thoughts on the orphanage conversation and have written and spoken on it myself, but my question pertains to the short term missionary aspect.
Trauma training and making sure that the team falls in line with the greater picture of ministry are a good baseline, but I want to know what teams do practically and how that benefits and advances the care of the orphans. We know that our ministries need financial support often and I think that short term visitors present that as a potential benefit. However, I’ve seen in Tanzania that those people that contribute or are involved in any facet afterward are few and far between.
Our parent organization does bring on short term teams and I struggle to come up with anything to involve them with in our orphan care ministry (or the other ministries for that regard) that are both effective and mutually beneficial. I’d really like to hear what specifically the teams do and how that aids the orphan care community.
Thanks for another great listen. I’m really enjoying the series.