The Alongsiders International team is excited to announce the appointment of Hitomi and Andy Gray, who have joined our team based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to work from our head office.
Hitomi holds a PhD from Fuller in the field of contextualized theological education and will be bringing her immense experience and wisdom to head up our Curriculum Development team (the folks who create our amazing comic book lessons).
Andy is a gifted wordsmith and photographer who has been the chief Editor and writer behind the orphan-care website, UnitingForChildren.org. Andy will continue to use his talents to benefit vulnerable children, as a scribe and storyteller for the Alongsiders movement.
Together, Andy and Hitomi have three daughters. They met in the US but have spent many years raising their family and ministering in Japan and Cambodia. More recently, Andy has worked in Cambodia helping young people transition from orphanages to living in the community. He loves cooking food from scratch and every time he visits his hometown in the US, he returns with bags of dried green chile powder for making New Mexican enchiladas and green chile stew.
Hitomi, a native of Japan, grew up in both Japan and the US. Her vocational focus has been education, curriculum design and creative inner healing work - including developing contextualized materials for Cambodian youth. Hitomi swam competitively growing up and loves to be in water. Her favorite memories are swimming with a pod of wild dolphins in Hawaii and sitting in outdoor hot springs in her Japanese hometown.
We welcome Andy and Hitomi to the team and look forward to their contribution to the wider movement for vulnerable children.
Read more about the rest of the Alongsiders Team here.