Years ago, my childrens’ father and I decided we would spend our lives experiencing as many parts of the world as we could in this lifetime. Even after divorcing, we continued to co-create a decidedly international life for our family. Looking back now there’s a pattern resembling decades – one in Europe, one in Africa, one in Asia.

Indeed, next year will mark 10 years since we moved to Thailand; after the kids moved on to further their educations in Europe, I stayed. And as much as I love my life and adore the magical mountain community I’ve become a part of, visa rules currently don’t allow me to do the kind of work I’d hoped to do with displaced people along the border with Myanmar. An awesome project I started with a refugee village was not allowed to continue, which has been a very bitter and difficult pill to swallow. The sweetness of community has nonetheless kept me lingering here, and now it’s been almost a decade.

I’ve recently realized that it’s time to be sprouting my global wings again.

Another continent is calling.

Actually, another me is calling.

When I reflect on the moments in my life so far when I’ve felt the most fulfilled and alive, it was when I was working with communities of displaced people. I am good at helping people find hope and confidence in themselves and each other. I enjoy helping those who’ve lost a sense of their own potential to rediscover it. I am talented at creating shared moments of community magic.

I have been asking myself where, in this beautiful yet tragic world, I might go to reclaim that Christina: the one who starts stuff to help marginalized communities, who innovates and champions cross-cultural connections for uplift, and who inspires others to imagine and make progress toward new versions of themselves in the world. The truth is, I love her – that version of me. She’s been dormant in me lately, but I’ve asked her re-emerge so I can work with her again. I’ve a hunch she is wiser now, but I also know she’s a bit slower these days.

My thoughts have been circumnavigating places, languages and local challenges…. Hmmm… though Spanish was my first foreign language, I’ve not yet lived in a Spanish speaking country. South America? Spanish speaking South America? Or wait… maybe closer to my people in California?

Northern Mexico has come alive in my mind with possibility.

Working with war affected people displaced from their homes in Uganda, and with groups of refugees here in Thailand who fled violence in Myanmar, I have witnessed how the trauma of being violently forced to leave one’s home can leave people feeling stuck well into the future. I’ve also experienced how co-creative approaches to personal and community uplift can reignite the spark all humans need to develop vision, and to find the inner strengths and resources needed to work toward it.

• Could the approaches I love be useful amid the humanitarian crisis playing out for the displaced people who find themselves near the US border in Northern Mexico?
• What can help optimize psycho-social outcomes for displaced families, if engaged earlier in the resettlement process than I’ve worked in the past?
• Are there gaps in the support landscape that people can organize to provide for each other?

Yes- these are the kinds of questions I’d love to spend the next 10 years of my life exploring.

Mexico or bust in 2023

Starting over from scratch in another country – again – is going to take planning and resources. And suddenly, with a “why” in place, everything else I’ve been quietly working on fits together in a new way.

Beginning in 2022, at least 25% of any and all income I earn via Christinaswwworld.com – on all the books, courses, conversations, coaching & community hosting I have planned – will be earmarked for my Impact in Mexico fund. That includes The Laughing Ladders Project, of course, which you can support today!

The dream on display here is to raise roughly $50,000 via Christinaswwworld.com for this purpose, with the intention of covering:

1) Getting myself there in early 2023 ($3000+ in flight and transition costs);

2) Volunteering in a position in which I can listen and learn, for at least 6 months, about the challenges displaced people in Northern Mexico are facing, ($5000 in living costs), and;

3) Establishing (or preferably co-investing in) a gathering space similar to those I have started on other continents, where community serving activities can be co-creatively hosted, planned and nurtured. (+/-$40,000)

And with that, dear friends, I have found my next “why.”

Suddenly, next steps are clearer. That version of me that I love is feeling shiny and full of active hope. She is also grateful, for you and for all who might become a part of manifesting this intention along the way.