A blogger that I read regularly recently used it to try to find people from his past. I don't know if it worked (did it, Welblog?) but I thought I'd do the same. I've been thinking about my Teen Missions experience lately. At the ages of 14 and 15 I participated in Teen Missions International teams, first to Egypt, then to Norway. Teen Missions is an organization that sends out teams to foreign countries to do mission work, either purely evangelistic or alongside work projects. I did one of each: in Egypt, we helped with some projects at the Lillian Thrasher Orphanage (or is it Lillian Trasher Orphanage? I thought it was the former and I'm finding both ways on Google) in Assiut (multiple spellings of that one; for the keyword search: Asyut, Assyut). The next year I went to Norway with a bike team, where we got to ride all over the gorgeous Norwegian countryside and do coffeehouses and door-to-door evangelism. I remember one woman who invited the girl I was door-to-dooring with into her home. She was not in the least interested in being nagged back to Christianity. After we got that out of the way we had a very enjoyable conversation.
I no longer agree with the methods used by TMI, but I am highly curious as to where my teammates ended up. I can't remember the full names of anyone on either team, though, and even if I could, probably most of the girls would have taken husband's names, making googling difficult. (A downside to women taking husband's names, in my book!) So, if any of the members of the Egypt Orphanage team from 1983, or the Norway Bike team from 1984 find this, please drop me a line either in the comments or from my email, which can be found in my profile. Any other TMIers are also welcome to comment!
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9 comments:
Hey! I was a TMIer too. Israel '81 - it was a work team in Gaza. Small world. I was never interested in the Evangelism teams myself. I've often wondered how everyone turned out too but don't remember any names either.
I hope you find some old friends.
Oh, that's funny! We did our "debrief" in Israel, after Egypt. It was in the next village from Bethlehem, and we were together with the Israel team at that point.
Small world, eh? I suppose one of the things making me think of TMI is that a parishioner just brought it up--I guess my husband had mentioned it, and their daughter was with TMI.
James heard from a few people who knew the people he listed. Kind of a "Oh, yeah Susie So&So got married and has two kids, lives in Iowa now" kind of updates.
I have not heard from the friend I hoped to find, but one of my old coworkers who I mentioned found the entry while Googling himself, and stopped by to say hello.
I hope you have better luck!
Norway is such a beautiful country. I especially love the Bergen area.
we're in boston and finally have internet in the house after a four week wait. so i'm reading your blog again. great that you helped at Lillian Trasher. We visited there when we lived in Egypt and were pretty familiar with it all.
Oh, that's funny! We did our "debrief" in Israel, after Egypt. It was in the next village from Bethlehem, and we were together with the Israel team at that point.
That is a small world. You probably saw my team leaders as I heard they went back for several years. We were outside of Jerusalem in '81, at a home for children doing construction and clean up. I can't even imagine what has happened to it since then.
Deb--I don't remember any of the leaders or team members from Israel--all I remember from Israel (besides visiting Jerusalem) was that the denarius was so unstable. One day a candybar would be 45 cents, the next day 25 cents, and then go back.
Yeah, I think it would be very interesting to go back and find out what happened to those places. I can see from googling that the Lillian Trasher Orphanage is still doing great, but what about the places in Israel? So much turmoil there.
Laurie--so good to hear you're finally settled! I'm hoping you'll eventually write on your blog again. I miss reading your upsdates.
Karrie--I don't remember where exactly in Norway we were. But Bergen does ring a bell. I remember it was just below the line--what's it called--where in the summer you have endless daylight. It was summer, and we had daylight all the time but the sun did dip just below the horizon. It was very cool but we all had trouble sleeping for a while.
(sidetrack - HEY Laurie! Good to see you)
It's a small world indeed, good luck Pres. Elizabeth!
Wow, TMI Bethlehem, Israel 8143 I was there in Beit Jala @ the boys high school orphanage doing landscape and concrete work. We beat the DC dial-a-teen @ debrief in Maryland.
Wow--does that make you a teammate of Deb's? That means I've been more successful in finding *other people's* teammates than my own. Anyway, you can find her blog by clicking on her username.
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