Partner Organization Highlight: Glocal in Boise, Idaho
Peace Catalyst International (PCI) Team Members Nick and Laura Armstrong live and work in Boise, Idaho and have been with Peace Catalyst for over 12 years. Their local nonprofit, Glocal Community Partners, closely partners with Peace Catalyst by welcoming and developing friendships of mutuality with people who have come to the Boise area as refugees. Glocal’s work in providing tangible aid and pathways for forcibly displaced people, refugees, and new Americans to integrate easily into their communities is integrally important, and the need for their work is ever-increasing in the United States. Continue reading to find out more about Glocal, their impact, and the importance of the Armstrongs and their work in PCI.
After living in Indonesia for 23 years, where they worked in relief, development, and education, the Armstrongs returned to Boise in 2013. In that transition, God laid it on their hearts to work with a growing community of forcibly displaced people (over 20,000 in the last three decades) who have come to Boise to find safety, freedom and healing. Boise’s new neighbors are from all over the world, bringing with them diverse cultures, language and religions, but they also all share a common journey of persecution, escape and survival. They have found themselves in an entirely new place, cannot go home, or are afraid to because of persecution. Often, this persecution is due to their race, religion, nationality or particular social group.
Nick and Laura founded Glocal with the aim of mobilizing, training and connecting volunteers with these forcibly displaced people to help foster friendships. Glocal exists to welcome them into a new chapter of life - one that doesn’t erase their past, but helps them embrace the challenge of leaving home and helps them thrive in a safe community that many of us may take for granted. At its core, Glocal is a Christian organization with a strong commitment to the values of:
bhospitality: welcoming “the stranger” - the refugee - into our lives without reservation (Matthew 25:35)
relationships: living out Jesus’ command to love one another (John 13:34) by prioritizing authentic and caring relationships
dignity: upholding the value and dignity of all people as image bearers of God (Genesis 1:27) regardless of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or social group
mobilization: calling and equipping the local Christian community to put faith in action (James 2:17).
Serving and working with forcibly displaced people has become the Armstrongs’ heart work, and they often share that they receive much more than they give. What they give through Glocal’s regular programs and outreach, however, is astounding and includes:
hosting baby showers for babies and new mothers (63 total served in 2024)
organizing community gardens (54 garden plots with 265 people in 2024)
assembling and distributing household kits for new arrivals with essentials like kitchen tools and appliances, toiletries, children’s clothes and school supplies, and more (880 people served with 765 kits in 2024)
delivering furniture to new refugee arrivals (949 people total served in 2024)
hosting weekly English classes for women and children (average of 32 ladies and 17 kids weekly).
Learn more about Glocal’s work and impact, the Boise refugee community, and Glocal’s core leadership team on their website, and consider donating furniture and household items or volunteering. Alternatively, support the Armstrongs and their valuable work via PCI as they help to make the Boise area a welcoming home to displaced people.
