USA (MNN) — Teen Missions International exists to launch youth into lifetime missions involvement by training, discipling and mobilizing them to impact eternity around the world now. And this past summer, Teen Missions did just that, sending dozens of young people around the world ready to work both physically and spiritually.
Just one example of this was Teen Missions' trip to Papua, Indonesia. Mike and Naomi Flora led the team. Naomi explains: "We actually took eight youth with us, and two other leaders. We took them to help out at our Teen Missions base that we have there. They're trying to build a Bible school."
The work they did wasn't very glamorous. Naomi says, "Mainly they did work on the septic system to try and get that up and running. And when we left, they had all four septic tanks completed so they can start building the main building."
The Bible school will be strategic because Naomi says the area in which they were working was a predominately-Muslim area. She says, "Once it's completed, they hope to have up to 100 students. They just started the base back in April, but they were actually going to be having a boot camp training time. Currently they are running the school with 16 students, but the students are having to live in tents."
The center will be similar to other Teen Missions centers around the world that will encourage national youth to reach out to their neighbors with the Gospel.
While construction was one focus, evangelism was another goal. Naomi says, "This team did more evangelism than any of my teams have ever done. The whole time we were there, we never saw another white person. So everybody wanted to see American kids come to their school and to do their program, which meant we had a lot of opportunities to go and serve."
It's difficult to determine how many kids came to Christ as a result. "We had quite a few show an interest, but because we don't actually speak the language, we refer them to the missionaries who are already there."
Whatever the case, Gospel seeds were planted. Now the ministry needs to be bathed in prayer. Naomi says, "They definitely need prayer to finish their Bible school building. They need prayers to be protected from malaria. We even had one of our kids get malaria while we were there. A number of our staff have had it as well."
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