I never went to the Honor Academy. I prayed and God quickly killed the idea in my mind because he already knew I dealt so much with a guilty conscience and HA would only make that worse. (Actually that feeling was finally helped when I read To Kill a Mockingbird and in the story Scout had gotten in trouble for fighting. Atticus said how she was trying, and he knew she was trying. And that was enough. God spoke so much to me in those few sentences.)
Anyway the extent of my experience with Teen Mania was with my Global Expeditions mission trip. That really tainted my idea about TM. But I would first like to say that even though my TM experience was bad, I do not regret that trip. The organization we were working with while on the trip is full of Godly people making a real difference in the world and for the kingdom and I learned so much from them. And I will not disclose too much information, even where I went and what year, because I am still friends with many pro-TMers and do not wish to offend them or burn bridges. I simply want to make sense of my experience.
So things started going bad about two weeks before the trip. The intern who was assigned to me to make sure everything was in order before I got to Teen Mania’s campus in Texas never told me that the trip was debriefing “in country” which meant I would have to find my own flight home. I finally figured out by talking to some of the other people who were going on the trip and my mom freaked. I was upset that this was never told to me. We immediately contacted TM and got someone to help us get my flight. It took a few hours but we got me a flight and all was well.
First day on campus, I begin getting acquainted with everyone and making friends. I learned the rules and did my best to abide by all. They reminded us before bed that we should not be anywhere on campus alone and if you need to go anywhere, let a missions advisor (MA) know. So before bed I was worried about having to go to the bathroom at night, as you know the longhouses don’t have one. So I asked one of the MA’s what to do if I have to go to the bathroom and night and I got the answer “I don’t know, just don’t wake me up.” Thankfully I slept through the night fine without a bathroom break so I was relieved.
The first full day in which we had “training” we found out which drama we would be doing. Now through most of the drama a lot of us were on our knees. Not so bad but seeing as we were doing it under the pavilion where the ground was made mostly of roof shingles, it was hard on the knees. In our first break, one of the Honor Academy interns who was helping us with our drama noticed we were getting weary of being on our knees all the time, so he pulled out his Bible and read us the “discipline your body and make it your slave” scripture. I did my best but it still hurt, and finally I no longer wanted to kneel and did the drama while standing up. I was told I needed to try harder to discipline my body.
We came to a point where they wanted us to practice our testimonies in front of everyone. In mine, I spoke of my parent’s divorce. After that the Project Director’s son said to me, “It’s okay, a lot of good people’s parents get divorced.” Thanks. I never thought their divorce did make me a bad person in first place.
Finally, when it came time to leave campus for DFW it was about 11 at night. We loaded the bus and were off. In the buses there was the rule of girls by girls and boys by boys, seeing as it was a night trip. Now the buses had these seats that faced each other and the bottoms could be pulled out to connect them to make a place for your feet to rest and make a somewhat “bed.” I just so happened to be sitting across from two boys. I suggested we pull the seats out to have a place to rest our feet and make it easier to sleep, seeing as no one had since 7am that morning and we probably wouldn’t until the next night. One of the boys (Project Director’s son) said that that would be inappropriate seeing as it would put boys and girls on the same seat. Never mind the fact that it was like sitting on opposite ends of a twin sized bed with your feet extended. Not sexual at all if you ask me but I didn’t want to argue for fear of getting kicked off the trip and I felt like a skank for even suggesting it. All this was new to me seeing as I had always been in very close organizations in school where boys and girls were always close. We would change on the same bus with the boys and we sat and slept in very close quarters so not much was really sexual to me and I almost never get crushes so that wasn’t a worry at all.
Now I didn’t have this problem, but someone pointed it out to me a few years later that this happened. When a lot of girls are put in close quarters together, a lot of them were having problems with starting their periods when they weren’t supposed to. A lot of girls weren’t expecting it on the trip so some didn’t prepare. When we got to our place we were staying, many girls asked to go to the convenience store across the street to get supplies. They were never allowed to go. Thankfully there was enough from the other girls to hold them but it still was a basic hygienic need that they should have been allowed to attend to.
Our female Team Leader’s (TLs) were very mean. There were two. Mine would always speak to me in a condescending way and would always reprimand me for not being more “involved” in what was going on. She kept an annoyingly close eye on me looking for me to do something wrong. She would stand over me in the morning demanding that I get up and immediately start getting ready. If I didn’t immediately pop up and start getting dressed in the morning I wasn’t being “obedient.” The other TL was rude as well. She was always on her high horse and had little discretion for what she did. She would hold up stuff for people to claim that may have gotten lost from them. In the bathroom she had found a pair of underwear and in front of all she held them up for someone to claim. For about 5 minutes she held them up saying how disgusting it is to leave your underwear lying around and someone needed to step forward and claim them so we could move on with our day. Did I mention there was a massive blood stain in them? No wonder no one stepped forward to claim them, I wouldn’t.
In our drama there is a girl on a chain and there is a guy who’s supposed to be the devil yanking her back every time she tried to walk to “God.” Eventually the girls (one girl on each team and their replacement) all got horribly bruised on their lower abdomen. Instead of telling the guys to go easier on the girl, or changing out who did that part to not make the bruises worse, they simply used the girl who was “less bruised.” The guys were told nothing about going easier. One day the guy on the other team pulled the girl so hard she fell and smacked her head on the ground. She was disorientated for a little while but thankfully the damage wasn’t worse.
A incident with my TL. One morning I (surprisingly) woke up earlier than everyone. I wanted to shower before everyone got up because I hadn’t gotten one the night before. (4 showers among 40 girls, 2 were for 18 and older, most of us didn’t get to shower everyday) I got my stuff and my TL was showering. She saw me come into the bathroom because she had reached out of the shower to grab her shampoo. She promptly told me to go lay back down because it was her shower time and I needed to shower when all the other girls were allowed to. In the last day we had to go around and say nice things to our leaders. I didn’t have one nice thing to say about her and had to make something up. Shocker.
A few days before it was time to go home, my mom checked my flight info. She was freaked out. Even though we sat on the phone as the intern got the plane ticket, the intern managed to screw it up. The flight had the right day, the 28th, but wrong month. Instead of a flight home on June 28th, I had one home on July 28th. One thing you do not tell my mother; there’s a problem with getting your baby home. My mom called Teen Mania and spoke to a girl who understood, worked with my mother and said she got it all fixed and that she would let my PD’s know. A bit over 24 hours later my mom called me again to talk to my PD’s. When she did, they had no idea of the change or that anything had been fixed. Turned out it hadn’t. My mom was livid at this point. After laying into my PD she then called TM back and yelled at them for lying to her. They then were able to get my flight back home and my mom spoke to several high up TM people to find out why this happened and why no one caught this blip before.
Last weird TM thing that happened before I went home was this. On our free day my group (btw, groups always had to have one boy in it. I felt sorry for the boys having to be separated and not getting to do as many boy things because they had to watch over girls all the time) had to go to the bathroom. We stopped for that and afterwards we couldn’t find the boy and one of our girls. My MA freaked. She was cool and wanted to find them before PD’s did so they wouldn’t get BV’d. We found them a few aisles over looking at something, nothing bad and it was completely innocent. It blew my mind that something so accidental could have gotten them BV’d.
I got home fine, my mom called TM several times after that seeing what they were going to do to make sure what happened with my plane ticket wouldn’t happen to anyone else. She wanted to know they changed their policy of checking information before the trip. As many times as she called, no one called back. My mom wanted me to have nothing to do with TM anymore and since then we haven’t.
From the rules I got from TM I felt bad about things a lot. We were told when we get home we should “get rid of all our secular music” because if we didn’t, God would see that we preferred it over him and we wouldn’t get into heaven. When I asked about secular music with positive messages, I was told that unless God was the root of the message, it wasn’t good. I went around feeling bad about a lot of things in life feeling like I needed to “fix” myself. I felt unworthy of ever having a boyfriend because I didn’t feel like I deserved whoever God had for me. Eventually I was able to see that God loved me no matter if I listened to secular music or got mad at someone or even had a bad attitude from time to time. NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ. I just hope all those hurting from TM’s message can remember that.
18 comments:
Thank you for sharing your story. I know many people who see the wrong from TM from their missions trips and be thankful that God was over you. I am glad you had a ride home and all got fixed but wow yea that was intense thank you for this 🙂
I relate to your plane ticket issue! Interns on the phone for GE need to know about specific trips!!! On one trip, they made me take malaria pills and bring long sleeve shirts. When I got in country, I learned there were no mosquitos because there is a severe drought there in the summer. When I went to the Philippines, it was literally advertised in their brochure as “Come see the sunny Philippines! ” Except it was the rainy season while we were there. I actually lost my tan and everyone had to buy umbrellas and ponchos because no one was prepared for rainy season since no TM person ever mentioned it. I haven’t been on a trip in a long time, but the packing list used to be generic, regardless of what country you were going to with no consideration for things like whether you would primarily be in villages or cities. If you tried to get more info from TM, no one ever knew. A girl on one of my trips came to MA camp with her sister, but she was only 15. The rep told them it was fine since they wanted to travel together, but of course it was the end of the world when a 15 year old non-MA candidate was at MA camp. With all the disorganization on these trips, it’s not surprising to me you almost got left in country! I’m sorry for what you experienced on your trip and I’m glad you had a very involved mother who looked out for your interests when the people who should’ve been doing it let you down.
so he pulled out his Bible and read us the “discipline your body and make it your slave” scripture
the same i beat my body and make it my slave abuse scripture. bloody brilliant
Sorry to hear about your experience. Ive been on many trips with TM, and I learn alot on each trip. I love the trips, and it hurts when I hear of bad things that happen on some trips. GE tries to do their best to make the trip an enjoyable one. You should call John Hasz and talk to him, hes always happy to help with any issues you have had. Teen Mania has really changed the past 2 years, and GE is alot different too. Honestly the best thing you can do now is just forgive those that have hurt you, and look to the future. Dont let 1 experience govern your life, God has great plans for your future 🙂
Wow, you did have a bad experience! I’m sorry! I’ve been on two GE trips and have not had any problems with bad leadership or such things! I can say I have heard lots of stories like yours were poor leadership was in place. It sucks when that happens because often times your tls set the mood for the whole day and team. If you can’t get along with them your trip is destined to be awful! However with the stories I’ve heard obviously they came back for a second trip, and they all said they did not regret that their second experience was so much better! So I would encourage you to give it a second chance and share your story with GE so they can take initiative in making sure it won’t happen again. Also with being an alumni you would be more aware of what to make sure your rep does!!! (IDK why they didn’t take care of that) I also know that GE has a bunch of rules! However, they are only in place because they have had problems in the past. GE has a lot of boys who would have taken full advantage of that pull out seat. Boys in the groups is only because weirdo perves in foreign countries are less likely to “make a move” with a guy present. Guys seem to have this tough, big, and bad, persona. As far as getting bvd for getting separated from the team because if someone where to go missing there would be one mad momma!! So they put severe punishments on stuff like that. I’m so sorry your trip was that bad. I hope you choose to go on another trip even if its not with GE. God wants to use you and I completely agree with the anon post above me!
Please don’t write comments saying how much Teen Mania cares and how much they want to fix things when the original poster clearly said that TEEN MANIA DID NOT CALL THEM BACK.
Do not speak on behalf of Jon Hasz or any other staff members. Let their actions speak for them. This is hardly the first story like this and it won’t be the last.
GE Alum, When I was an MA the boy we had in our group was 14 and while he was a sweet good kid he was less useful in the take care of your own department than ANY of our girls. This happened on two separate trips and most of the people in other countries that saw us in full drama clothes and makeup would try to avoid us like most people do to Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons on Mission frankly depending on the trip the nationals come off with a feeling of offense which makes sense when you are walking into holy places for other religions and trying to Pray/sing so loudly you drown out their religious leaders speeches/chants/prayers all of these things bring a very horrid environment of showing us to be disrespectful and not loving. Not to mention with the men with women rule in certain countries this causes the people to think less of the man because young men are prohibited in certain religions from walking directly with women who are not their Wife/Mother so yeah your thoughts are flawed. I gave it a second try and was proven right in my first impression that GE acts fully on either ignorance or arrogance in most cases and puts their missionaries in harms way like this more often than not.
Thanks so much RA for helping my story to be heard and for me to get some validation of my feelings towards TM.
To GE Alumni, check the second to last paragraph. We did try many times to contact them afterward. No one seemed to care this happened.
I will however say that I will go on another mission trip again when an opportunity presents itself. Just never again with GE.
I’m very happy for anyone that did have a good experience on a GE, I did not. I loved the organization we were working with in-country despite all the crap I was going through with GE leaders. They really had a heart for the children. Their God is the one I serve. Not one that will tell me to put myself through pain all in the name of “making my body my slave” or who will lie to people.
RA-
Come on!
“Please don’t write comments saying how much Teen Mania cares and how much they want to fix things when the original poster clearly said that TEEN MANIA DID NOT CALL THEM BACK.”
I thought that this forum was about healing and free speech. Where was the free speech in that? GE’s number one thing is saftey. We fly people out to examine the country- and then we had Regional Directors who oversea international regions- then PD’s who oversea our TL- who oversea our MA’s who oversea our missionaries. Dont be disapointed- not everyone has the same experience as listed above.
Let me give you an example, my family and I went to Disney world- everyone loves disney world for the most part.. the day we went, the gate was half an hour late opening.. then the lady behind the tickets counter didnt give me back my change- it was not looking good. Finally we decided that we weren’t let this ruin our trip. We found rude people their- and our hotel was a story in itself- needless to say our experience was bad the first time.. should we shut down disney? No because the second time we went no of the above was an issue. everything was literally perfect..
Dont let one situation rumble over all of the Good..
j.
Does that kool-aid taste good?
Bad customer service at Disneyland? Are you kidding me? This is your comparable expeience?
@ Anon,
This is not a forum of “free speech”. This is a private blog. Check out the comment policy if you are unclear…
One situation does not cancel out the good. 100+ documented situations will make a major dent in that good, however.
I know your defense of TM comes from a good place, a place that feels very loyal and devoted to TM for all the good they’ve done in your life. I’m sure they have done good things for you, to whatever extent you believe it. I’m not going to try to talk you out of how wonderful they are. It’s almost as pointless as me trying to convince you of how damaging and abusive our situations were. It’s okay. We don’t need you to see things from our perspective in order to know that TM is abusive and corrupt from the top down. It doesn’t make TM evil, or anyone else who is associated with it. It makes TM wrong. It makes them culpable for thousands of people who have walked through that revolving door of Good Intentions. It makes us broken and damaged. But mostly, it makes TM human and openly flawed…and THIS is the thing they refuse to acknowledge. Without that, without an acknowledgment and commitment to change, they become willfully abusive, and that is NEVER okay. Regardless of how much “good” they’ve done.
I just wrote a super long comment and freakin google deleted it grrrr…..
Anon at 9:20-Anyway, I was TL for 4 trips with GE. Long story short, you find out how UNsafe the trips can be when you are in leadership. Case in point-I TL’d on a 2 team trip to inner city LA. It was the first time GE was going to LA, and supposedly, as Anon mentioned there were contacts set up, ministry in place, housing secured. We ended up at a church with a verbally abusive pastor, in a very dangerous neighborhood, in a condemned building with plywood floors, rusty nails all over, unsafe conditions, 2 toilets for 60 people and 1 sink, no showers, and ZERO MINISTRY setup. We were told to just go out and walk around to see if we could perform our drama at the local parks. Since we didn’t have contacts with us, we unknowingly were walking around in gang ruled neighborhoods with color wars and were told by the locals that we had better get out of there for our kids’ safety. We ended up having to move our trip to a nearby city toward the end and had to keep the move a secret from the pastor who was a total loose cannon.
All my GE trips were great memories for me even though they were difficult-HOWEVER-if my baby was on an unsafe trip like that, I as a parent would be appalled! And if I called the ministry they traveled with and could not get someone to answer me, I would be desperate.
I interned at the HA, was a Staff Associate and was a Team Leader with GE 4x. I have been on 5 GE trips. In the summer a skeleton crew handles all the departments. You can barely ever get a live person who knows what they are doing.
On another trip I was on, we let our kids cut grass with machetes at a ministry site to help the ministry. The kids were about 14 yrs old. At the time, I was in my early 20’s and didn’t think it was a big deal. Now, as a parent myself, I would be horrified to find out my son did that without supervision. I believe that GE trips are safe in general, however, don’t blanket statement that all GE cares about is safety because that was not my experience.
Finally, Anon, a customer service agent at Disney being rude and a mother not being able to ensure her daughter’s safe return from a foreign country are not to be put in the same category. I am surprised that you as a parent yourself would draw that comparison.
My favorite thing, ever, is when a fairly recent graduate of the internship (within the last 2 years) comes on the forum and tells us how much the internship has changed in the last 2 years— since they have such a frame of reference for their baseless statement. Please, keep spouting off the words of your fearless leaders- DH and HS.
One of the major problems with GE is that they don’t place their business (and it is a business) in a place to be judged and evaluated by their clientel. When a customer has a bad experience, GE’s attitude is not “let us help you” – as most companies would be if they hoped to continue bringing in more/repeat clientel – rather, GE blames the customer. Bad bad bad. Bad.
And, worse, they do it from a place of spiritual condemnation. If you had a bad experience (or several), GE believes (and will tell you) that it was because you weren’t in “God’s will”. They’d never admit to running their non-profit like a bunch of 18 year olds who have never seen the inside of an office before (imagine that).
Okay who thinks this is disturbing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v36Yv-zWUo&feature=player_embedded
That video just brought back some horrific memories. It’s been four years since I was last there and it really seems like a lifetime ago.
Oh and GE interns don’t know a thing about their trips. Why? Because I worked in the GE Call center. I was 17, working with other 17 and 18 year-olds, and you really shouldn’t have someone that inexperienced and naive orchestrating trips that grand. Accidents are bound to happen and why risk that? C’mon TM, hire some professionals to get the job done.
Anonymous, you might be trusted a LITTLE bit more if you weren’t posting anonymously.