Teen Missions

A blog I read regularly recently used it to try to find people from their past, and I thought I'd do the same. Not sure if it worked--did it, Welblog? Anyway, I've been curious to find people from the two Teen Missions International teams I worked with when I was 14 and 15 years old. This is an organization that sends teams of teens to foreign countries to do mission work, either solely evangelical or working with construction, too. I did one of each--the first year I went to Egypt and we helped with a few building projects at the Lillian Thrasher Orphanage in Assiut (many different spellings on that--for keyword searches, it's also Asyut, Assyut, etc.). The second year I went to Norway on a bike team. We rode all over the beautiful countryside in Norway and did coffeehouses, where we'd sing and someone would preach. I can remember one woman who invited us into her home, one other girl and I. She established very early on that she is not interested in Christianity--she was an agnotic, I think, and not interested in organized religion. But after we got that out of the way we had a wonderful conversation. I think that any foreign travel is so educational and I have taken every opportunity that I've had to take my kids to different places. If you have to choose paying for private school or traveling, I say travel.

I no longer subscribe to the methods used by TMI, but I am interested to find out what happened to those folks. It was certainly a memorable time in my life and I was forever changed by it. I cannot remember the full names of anyone on my teams, and even if I did, the girls have likely taken their husband's names--the big problem with googling people you knew way back when. If any of you from Egypt Orphanage, 1983, or Norway Bike, 1984 find this blog, please drop me a line in the comments box, or go to my email address in my profile. I'd like to know what you're up to!