New Departures Fidesco Volunteers

After having finished their training at the final Fidesco session in Paray le Monial, France from August 6 to 12, some 60 volunteers will join forces in developing countries in the coming months. This influx means that we will have 160 persons on site, a new record!  

For seven days the volunteers prepared their departure, following lectures and workshops about development issues, intercultural communication, professional challenges, time for prayer, etc. "It was a rich time from which we got the feeling to be better prepared for our mission", explain Pim and Anja van Rossum, a Dutch/German couple who will leave for a two year mission in Taiwan this autumn. "We will be together with two guys, one French and one Australian, who we got to know a little during this session. It will be great to have each other to lean on."

An equally large number of candidates came to Fidesco's discernment session - the first part of the formation. Here former volunteers and Fidesco staff took time to explain in detail all aspects of the mission andto interview each candidate to talk about motivation, personal questions and professional education and experience. Because of the higher number of candidates at this session, we expect to see an even bigger Fidesco presence next year... something we at Fidesco rejoice about, because we still receive more requests for volunteers from our local partners than we can fulfill.