Frontier Internship in Mission Project

Frontier Interns, Class of 1962-1964
Frontier Interns, Class of 1962-1964

Between 1960 and 1974, 139 new college or seminary graduates spent two years, either alone or with a spouse, in an experimental mainline Protestant program called Frontier Internship in Mission (FIM). Assignments were in one of 48 countries, usually either in the two-thirds world or “behind the Iron Curtain.” Unlike the Peace Corps, they worked out what they would do once they arrived and conferred with the host committee who had requested them. In 2009 and 2010, 125 of these people–they call themselves FIs (Frontier Interns)–were interviewed, usually in person. They were all religiously and socially active at the time they were selected to participate in the program. Would they be either or both or neither now? What difference had this experience made in their lives?

Ada Focer, Project Coordinator


web stats


Margaret Flory (1913-2009)

The Frontier Internship in Mission program came from the creative, entrepreneurial mind of Margaret Flory, the Presbyterian official in charge of Student Work, but who considered herself a missionary to all of the world's students. A fireball of energy with a keen sense of Christian commitment and sensitivity to what students were thinking and feeling, she sought out opportunities to turn individuals into bridge people across the world's chasms of difference. FIM was only one of her many programs that did that in different ways. This photo was taken in 2009. In 2010, shortly before her death, she hosted a... More