| Teen Missions International | |
| Type: | 501(c)(3) |
| Founded Date: | May 7, 1970 |
| Founder: | Robert M. Bland, Bernie Bland, Gayle Will, Jim Person |
| Location: | Merritt Island, Florida |
| Key People: | Steve Peterson, President |
| Homepage: | https://teenmissions.org |
Teen Missions International (TMI) is an interdenominational Christian mission organization specializing in running short-term mission trips for youth, teenager, and adult participation. The organization was started in 1970 in Ohio and later moved its headquarters to Florida.
"Boot Camp" is a ten day to two-week training period in which teams learn basic construction and evangelism skills, as well as cooperation and teamwork. TMI's main, and longest running, Boot Camp is based out of Merritt Island Florida.
The Boot Camp is designed to present simulations of the circumstances members may encounter overseas, and thus intentionally utilizes rustic conditions. Members live in tents, use buckets of water to bathe and wash clothes, and wear crude clothing such as construction boots..[1] [2]
Teen Missions International teams and mission trips are divided up into three different age groups.
TEEN Mission Trips (Ages 13–19 years)
The largest and most popular of these groups is the Teen Boot Camp teams. Teen mission trips focus on spiritual and character development in addition to offering work and evangelism assistance to the host mission on the field. The length of Teen mission trips vary slightly depending on location, but they average between 6 and 8 weeks.
PRETEEN Mission Trips (Ages 10–13 years)
Preteen teams are the second most popular group. Preteen teams have a separate Boot Camp training schedule and also run the Obstacle Course (which is slightly modified for their smaller size). The Preteen program focuses on character building and control of attitudes and actions. Preteens receive classes such as Bible Timeline, personal evangelism, music, drama and puppets. Control classes at Boot Camp include canoeing and bike riding. A typical Preteen trip runs around 4–5 weeks. Trip locations, like teens, are all over the world.
ADULT Mission Trips
Teen Missions also organizes Adult mission trips that travel at various times of the year, most trips run between January and April. Adult trips normally last for about two weeks and most serve at an established Teen Missions base overseas. Projects include community development projects (sewing school uniforms, building grinding mills, granaries, and drinking water wells).
Teen Missions is known for their strict Boot Camp training and well disciplined teams. A unique aspect of TMI is their form of discipline, referred to as Special Blessings Training (SBs to staff and team members). Team members serve an SB by serving on an assigned work project during their free time.
Special Blessings can be given for Obstacle Course disqualifications, when late to class, or for other policy violations. They can be given to individual team members or an entire team.
SBs are intended to help team members learn that their actions are important to effective team work and unity during training and on the mission field. A unified and well disciplined team will be safer during travel and at their assigned project.
Teen Missions believes that it is important to send out well trained and unified teams.
To help promote team building, a sense of accomplishment, and reliance on others, teams run a vigorous obstacle course during their Boot Camp training. Obstacles include Mount Sinai, (a large mountain formerly made of tires), Jacobs Ladder (a cargo net ladder), The Slough of Despond (a rope swing over a muddy pool of water), and the Wall (a twelve-foot wall that the team must work together to get each member over).
The Obstacle Course is usually run in the early morning (to avoid the extreme afternoon heat) and obstacles are carefully monitored by staff, but team members are sometimes treated for blisters, rashes, overheating, and other minor injuries.
Teams who disqualify (by committing an infraction of some sort) on the obstacle course are given a team Special Blessing (an "SB") and forfeit their one hour of free time for an hour long work assignment.
Parents have limited contact with their child during Boot Camp and on the field. This policy is meant to help the team members focus on the project without distractions and better cope with potential homesickness.
Evening visits are allowed by family or clergy during Boot Camp in Florida (since the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020, visits are limited to the night of the Commissioning Service).
Postal mail can be sent to team members at Boot Camp, on the field, and at Debrief. However, in some countries, it may not arrive until after the team has returned to the US. Team members can receive (but not send) emails during their training at Boot Camp.
Team members are not permitted to make phone calls - except for two calls of several minutes each right before leaving for the field and upon return from the field. One adult head leader on each team is allowed to bring a cell phone to the field for emergency use and sending reports back to the Teen Missions offices in Florida.
Updates for each team are posted on the Teen Missions website twice a week.
Teen Missions usually announces next year's locations in July once the current summer teams have arrived in Florida for training.
Number of available teams varies from age group to age group.
As to be expected, Teen Teams have the largest variety, followed by Preteen, and so on.
Please note that just because a team is offered, that does not mean that it will happen. Teams can be canceled at any moment, for any reason. These reasons usually consist of either lack of interest, immigration issues, political instability, or changes in the host country or with the host mission.
Most teams serve in work and evangelism, but some team projects are exclusively evangelistic (i.e. Drama, Choir or Sports teams). Work teams go to project locations to do a construction or landscaping project for the host ministry or Teen Missions Overseas Base where they will be staying. The work can include masonry, carpentry, landscaping, painting, plumbing, etc. Work teams do evangelism programs mainly on the weekends when they don't need to do the work project. Evangelism can include singing, drama, puppets and sermons/testimonies. On Sundays teams will take part in the worship service of a local church. Evangelism teams will focus mainly on doing evangelistic presentations. These will also include singing, drama, puppets and sermons/ testimonies; but may be specialized. There are some special mission trips which have a unique ministry focus in ministry or method such as backpack, boat, motorcycle, sports, film or clowning teams.
Teen Missions operates 32 bases on 4 continents with nearly 300 fulltime staff worldwide. Each base is unique and ministry approaches are contextualized based on local needs and culture. The primary ministry efforts are as follows:
Teen Missions was featured in a "48 Hours" episode of CBS on April 12, 2008. The organization also received attention for assistance to orphans in Africa. [8]
An article was written on Teen Missions in a Feb 15, 2008 issue of Christianity Today.
Florida Today reporter John A Torres travelled to Zambia with Teen Missions in 2006 resulting in a feature called Orphans & Angels