Discovery Teams

Discovery Teams are 2-5 week trips that are heavily exposure based and discipleship oriented in their design. WMF does not to create Discovery Teams as "work trips" or "ministry teams," but more specifically as discovery opportunities.

WMF does not pursue Discovery Teams, but rather allows churches and schools with whom we are in relationship to initiate these teams. This is primarily because of the large amount of administrative work that Discovery Teams create for the office and field staff.

WMF will only allow Discovery Teams to be comprised of members from the same church, school, or college/youth group. This means that WMF does not form Discovery Teams that are made of team members who come from a variety of different churches, schools and cities. These groups must be able to commit to team training prior to departure and team debriefing and follow-up after the Discovery Teams.

WMF will generally utilize the same criteria used by the Servant Team program for participation on Discovery Teams (for example, applicants need to be at least 18 years old).

Discovery Teams need to planned, scheduled, and contracted by November 30 of the year prior to the year of departure. All Discovery Teams that will happen in 2007 need to be planned and approved by November of 2006. This process involves a $300 non-refundable team/date deposit and a signed WMF Form D.725 (DT contract). The decision to plan and approve Discovery Teams is made by the Executive Director, the Director of Administration, and the Field Director of the WMF field that a proposed Discovery Teams hopes to visit.

The standard starting costs for Discovery Teams are as follows:

Bolivia Discovery Teams start at: $2,200
Brazil Discovery Teams start at $2,200
India Discovery Teams start at: $3,200
Nepal Discovery Teams start at: $3,200
Peru Discovery Teams start at: $2,200
Romania Discovery Teams start at: $2,600

These costs include round-trip international airfare, airport tax, domestic travel within the country the team is serving (trains and flights), conveyance, housing, food (including meals and safe drinking water), minor medical, ministry, hospitality honorarium, administrative, processing and other miscellaneous or incidental costs incurred by WMF. The cost DOES NOT INCLUDE immunizations, passport, visa, overseas travel insurance, required resources, the non-refundable deposit or spending money.

Once a team is approved (the $300 deposit has been received by the USA office and the Form D.725 has been signed by all parties involved), each member of the proposed Discovery Team needs to complete and submit a Discovery Team application to the USA office (Form D.700B with all reference forms completed). After all the applications have been received, WMF will select the participants from the list of applicants.

If you have further questions about Discovery Teams please contact us.