Broad picture of Teachers in Service, Inc

Teachers in Service(TIS) began with a calling by our Lord as communicated by Bob Pittman, then director of Children's education with Wycliffe Bible translators to Thom Votaw in 1997, Thom was a former professor  of teacher education but with no training in working with schools for children of Missionaries.

However, unknown to him at the time, the Lord had  planned a pathway for him to follow that included some stops that were tempting to  call home. (One pathway was as a professor Teaching the elementary science teaching methods course for several years at New Mexico State University. ) However

The Lord had other plans it turned out!

Thom's training to do the job the Lord called him to do evolved by his working with schools for children of missionaries in various places around the world. Teachers, administrators and parents communicated the value of and need for teachers and as an integral part of the Great Commission of Christ.  They basically outlined a reactive program  in which  schools would contact TIS about their needs for teachers. Prospective teachers  were recruited and  invited to contact schools. This process went on for a few years. 

In time, however, it became clear that what was needed was an executive director,  who could systematically take what the founder and the many who nurtured him along to an enhanced level. This would include a proactive, dynamic, and aspirational program through incorporating ideas of his/her own and by the recruitment of additional staff and then move TIS into a new dimension to better serve schools for children of missionaries, the children themselves, their parents, and The Great commission of Christ.