Marijke Kuo

Marijke is originally from the Netherlands. She is passionate about seeing people thrive in community. She loves helping people gain insights into themselves and others.

She has provided People Care and Training for cross-cultural workers since 2001. In the past 20+ years, she has equipped cross-cultural workers, leaders and People Care providers in listening skills, conflict management skills, debriefing skills, cross-cultural awareness, managing stress and transition, and many more topics related to working in a cross-cultural context.

Marijke has a Social Work degree in psychosocial counseling (Netherlands) and is currently living in the UK. She has also lived cross-culturally in Montreal, Canada and with her late husband Mark in Georgia, USA. During this time she has served as counsellor and trainer for the Face to Face and People Care courses, as a Member Care Team Director, and as an International People Care Director.

TeamWorks has been on my heart in the past ten years, as I see the power and effectiveness of bringing the entire team together for training and coaching. It is a unique opportunity to be real with one another, to learn and grow together as a team and community.

Leea Kang

Leea is from South-Korea, married for 23-years, and has one daughter. She has served with OM since 1997 in LifeHope in the UK and Jordan in the Middle East. She is now serving East Asia as APCF with her husband Juhyok Lee since August 2020 based in Penang Malaysia.

She has had the opportunity to serve many groups of people within and outside OM through various roles and jobs and ministries. These experiences have helped her understand and empathise with the people deeper and nourish the care ministry.

She has various certificates as ESL teacher, Bible teacher, DiSC profile facilitator, debriefing skills, cosmetology license with various skills within the field. She loves listening to people’s stories and it thrills her to see people come alive and recover from their struggles journeying with them.

Deep interest or passion would describe our feelings about the training we pass on through TeamWorks. 

We are committed to using the best of adult learning which makes our facilitating style fun, down to earth and practical. Using real life stories, participants connect with themselves and others in new ways. 

What led our path to this dedicated focus? Though from different States of the U.S., our lives intersected into marriage as we both began working with high school students through Student Venture, under CRU. That experience helped us realize how much we didn’t know, which motivated us to upgrade our understanding and skills through Masters Degrees from Denver Seminary and University of Phoenix.

John practiced as an LMFT (Licensed Marriage Family Therapist) for 20 years. He's also been involved in adoption all his life; as an adoptee, a director of an agency, a case worker, and educator. Karen, as a Licensed School Counselor, developed and directed Student Peer Counselor programs, led small groups, and provided individual and family counseling. John and Karen also enjoy helping couples with premarital counseling as Certified Prepare/Enrich Facilitators.

We have since been applying these skills in a variety of international cross-cultural situations, since 1998, being in situations and doing work we never dreamed of! These opportunities come from living and working in countries on three continents: Nairobi, Kenya; Vienna, Austria; Carlisle, England and providing Mobile Member Care to workers in Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. We feel privileged to have worked with over 40 organizations in the area of Member Care/Pastoral Care. 

From this work as Pastoral Care Givers, we have seen, sometimes painfully so, various strong patterns that affect cross-cultural workers’ health and satisfaction at their place of service. This sharpened our focus into doing something preventative. Hence, after much research, input and pilot programs, we are dedicated to offering the concepts of TeamWorks to cross-cultural teams beginning in 2009. Feedback from teams in Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, Costa Rica, Chile, Turkey, Bosnia and others have confirmed our hope that this can make a difference! 

When we return home from a TeamWorks training, we nod as we each go about renewing our energy in opposite ways; the ‘Extravert’ calls to catch up with friends over coffee; the ‘Introvert’ goes out to be as alone as he can, pulling weeds in his garden or watching English Premiership. Being parents to three, married, adult children means having seven delightful grandchildren. A much loved tradition is taking whichever grandchildren are in town to the ‘Home of the Flying Donuts’. You’re always welcome to join us.

We also have trainers available from Europe and Asia.