Globalization creates complex factors and impacts at a local community level, requiring new tools for engagement and decision-making. Students emerging into professional fields in this globally connected climate need to understand the fundamental web of social, political and cultural threads that have held communities together for centuries before outside factors began to disrupt local markets and relationships. Asset-Based Community Development is a communications methodology to promote inquiry, research and understanding about place-based social, economic and environmental capital and the local relationships that govern their utility. The approaches to community development under ABCD sets a foundational philosophy for practitioners, students and visitors alike to better understand the underlying values present within a community as a means of seeing it as a whole system within itself. This paper reflects on the Global Village Program, which applies an ABCD approach to service learning and field experience in Central Vietnam through Hiroshima Jogakuin University.