A social work education program was created to “contribute to peace, reconstruction and development by building social work leadership capacity” in the conflict-affected areas of Mindanao, the largest of the southernmost islands in the Republic of the Philippines (Community and Family Services International, 2009, p.1). This program represents a challenging intersection of the Global North with the Global South. This article presents the perspective of a social work educator who taught “Generalist Social Work Practice with Individuals, Families and Groups” to a group of social work students serving the hundreds of thousands of families displaced by the conflict and natural disasters. The challenge of adapting content to the “complex emergency” in Mindanao and attending to the students’ lived experience is discussed.