Frontier Internship in Mission was founded in 1960 by a group of visionary church people in the United States under the inspiration and leadership of Ms. Margaret Flory —the outstanding Presbyterian missionary who developed and administered FIM during its first fifteen years. Two American churches, the United Presbyterian Church and the United Methodist Church, regarded the program as a test case for their own mission agencies, and were joined soon after by the United Church of Christ in the United States.

Beginning as a USA program, FIM became international in 1970 in response to a new understanding of Christian mission: the traditional concept of the missionary endeavour as one of going from Christian centres to the non-Christian periphery was replaced by the notion that Christian mission encompasses the whole inhabited earth. Thereafter, mission from the South to the North, and from Southern to Southern countries, has been a trademark of FIM.

FIM’S MAJOR CONTRIBUTION rests upon the fact that it facilitates and organizes space and opportunity for various local communities of the world-wide Christian communions, the ecumenical movements and people’s movement organizations to come together, share their concerns on the meaning of Christian faith and the manner of its proclamation and witness in different cultural and social, political and economic situations. These local communities share their life, mission, work and their own people with each other across the whole world. More than forty years of experience placing several hundred young men and women around the world in frontier areas concerning peace with justice have provided a continuing challenge to the status quo of mission. FIM provides a way in which churches, ecumenical institutions and ecumenical movements can work together to transform and be transformed in their common witness to God’s action in history.

(From FIM Mission Statement 2001)