Jonathan & Annie

Unser Status

Beschreibung

Our Travel Website (http://sufamilyadventures.com)
Invited to present at TEDxTalk Yunnan, China: https://youtu.be/PEDVrY-mDf8

from 2020 to 2021 for 365 days, we plan to explore the mysteries of Africa, starting in South Africa and ending in Morocco, the passion of Spain & Portugal, the winter of Iceland, the warmth of the Caribbean, and the ancient cultures of Central America. After our positive experience doing workaway as a family during our last gap year, we want to do the same for this gap year as well.

From 2015 to 2016, we backpacked as a family of five for 12 months through 42 countries in Central Asia, Middle East, and Europe. Out of 365 nights, we slept 21 nights on the train, 9 nights on the bus, 1 night on the plane, 6 nights in the airport, 37 nights in the tent, 2 nights on the sailboat along the Nile, 42 nights couchsurfing, 25 nights at workaway, 28 nights in inns, 42 nights in hostel/homestay, 66 nights in AirBnB, and guess what 87 nights with friends! We got to know the people of these regions firsthand, as who they really are, and to appreciate the diversity of the culture, language, food, and sceneries.

We got to run out of the ancient gate that exit China to the western world; sit on top of a bus in Nepal; pray and camp on the wild part of the Great Wall; wash laundry as volunteers at the centers Mother Teresa set up in Kolkata; stand at the great divide between Israel and Palestine at the West Bank; hike through mountains of snow to reach a monastery in Georgia; get dunked in the Jordan River where Jordanian soldiers with machine guns are watching on their side while Israeli soldiers with their machine guns are watching on their side; enjoying the day at the Eiffel Tower; and making it back to LA from London after 365 days of the Silk Road Journey. We slept in parking lots, on grassland, and on top of sand dunes. We rode in hot air balloon and jumped on a running train. Even I couldn’t believe that we did it. I couldn’t believe we did it as a family with three teenagers!

We began this journey of team building in 2008. After years of running a typical field family life since working in China from 2001, we needed something different that worked for the 5 of us. With Jonathan at 38, Annie at 37, Olivia at 11, Nathan at 9 and Joani at 6 in March of 2008, we dived into the world of Backpacking! Our first adventure was backpacking through 8 countries in South America for 3 months on a shoestring budget while homeschooling bilingually on the road, living out of backpackers hostels, bus stations and the kindness of others. Since 2008 we continued to backpack yearly through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Hong Kong, biked around Taiwan, scaled 6000-meter mountains, trekked through river valleys, oceans and seas.

Jonathan: Husband

Jonathan has been serving the poor of China since 2001 with World Vision, an international NGO. Community development has been his passion since getting his Master in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and MBA at Kellogg Business School. Over the last 19 years, he started a center for Street children, a microloan center for unemployed workers in the city, supervised projects in 3 provinces, and finished a 4-year term of managing education, health, livelihood, and environmental conservation projects in the remote mountains of Yunnan with the Hani people group. Now, in this new chapter of his life, he is doing strategic planning, fundraising and marketing.
From the life of designing flash memory chips, being a business consultant to designing village toilets, pig pens, education and health projects, Jonathan’s career/ministry development has been an adventure. At home, he is a full-time dad of three kids, tutoring them in math, sciences and Chinese writing composition skills. He is a family man, plays basketball, loves Amazing Race and Geocaching, backpacked to more than 70 countries, climbed snow mountain peaks, and follows NBA basketball and is a fan of Jeremy Lin.

Annie: Wife

Annie has been married to Jonathan for 25 years. She has been in the career of family building, vision casting, spiritual formation, homeschooling, worship dance, intercession, bilingual translation and dream making.
She has become a recreational farmer during the 4 years of living in the village raising ducks, turkeys, chickens, veggies, egg-laying hens, maggots and compost worms. Her passion is to become a chef, a professional counselor, blogger, and writer. Her first book was on our 2008 gap year trip and she is currently writing the book on our second gap year in 2015-16.

Bereiche, die uns interessieren oder in denen wir anderen etwas beibringen können

Bereits etwas Erfahrung vorhanden  

Gartenarbeiten

Heimwerker- und Bauarbeiten

Handwerkliche Arbeiten

Betreuung von Tieren

Tourismus / Gastgewerbe

Kunstprojekte

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In der Lage, anderen etwas beizubringen:  

Babysitten und Kinderbetreuung

Zubereiten / Kochen von Mahlzeiten für die Familie

Mithilfe auf einem Bauernhof

Ökoprojekte

Hausarbeiten

Karitative Arbeit

Sprachpraxis

Hilfe mit Computer /Internet

Unterrichten

Was könntest du arbeiten?

General Common Skills that we possess
===================================
- Teaching or conversing in English and Chinese
- Business skills
- Computer and office skills (MS Office, email, answering phone, data entry)
- Farm, livestock and garden work
- Long distance biking
- Horseback riding
- Cleaning
- Caring for children

Specific Individual Skills
===================
Jonathan:
- NGO Project management (18 years of experience in education, health, economic dev, env conservation)
- Business management & operation, fundraising, marketing (has an MBA degree)
- Speaking on family & marriage building and family traveling
- Has a MS in Electrical Engineering (can teach math & science or do electric works)
- Build website and computer & network troubleshooting (Windows, MacOS, iOS)
- General household miscellaneous fixing (plumbing, electrical wiring & appliances, carpentry, etc.)
- Driving car and motorbike
- Scuba Diving
- Sailing
- Teaching guitar

Annie:
- Cross-cultural communications, networking, relations building
- Speaking on family & marriage building and family traveling
- Translation
- Writing
- Watercolor painting
- Homeschooling children
- Cooking
- Dancing
- Playing piano
- Scuba Diving

Gesprochene Sprachen

Englisch: Fließend
Spanisch: Fließend
Französisch: Fließend
Chinesisch (Mandarin): Fließend

Alter

52 & 51

Nationalität

USA & Canada & Taiwan & Hong Kong

Was noch ...

Having lived in remote villages for 4 years, often cooking with firewood on open pits and without toilet or shower, and backpacked on shoestring to more than 66 countries, we are used to difficult living conditions and hard farm work. While living in the village, we raised 1 horse, 16 egg-laying hens, 3 turkeys, 12 ducks, 10 chickens, hundreds of fish, 3 cats, and 2 dogs. In our garden, we planted corn, peanuts, rice, potatoes, lemongrass, vegetables, etc.

From 2015 to 2016, we did Workaway at a yurt camp in Mongolia, a nature conservancy NGO in Kazakstan, a hostel in Egypt, and a tree farm in Negev Desert of Israel. We also volunteered at Mother Teresa's service centers in Kolkata.

We are looking forward to knowing each country better by working and living with the people of each country, whether on a farm, at school, at a tour agency, an office, or just helping out in the house.

Etwas mehr Information

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  Führerschein

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  Allergien
  No

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  Spezielle Ernährung
  No. Everyone of us enjoys eating everything under the sun!