I am so surprised to see such a negative review on Pioneers! I lived overseas under Pioneers for two years. I was so grateful for the vetting and training done before the trip and the debriefing afterwards. In fact, I wish before going overseas that I had been a bit more forthright on my own shortcomings so that I could have been even better prepared and perhaps could have lived overseas longer. I had gone to a four year Bible college and taken extensive cross-cultural courses, so I could complain about Pioneers asking anything extra of me. However, I would much rather be over prepared than under prepared. I am glad Pioneers sees preparation and debriefing as pivotal. I did raise what some might call a lot of support, but Pioneers provided a lot of benefits for that support. Some non-profits don't account for member care or ask their workers to plan for retirement. Pioneers does. They also have you save for emergencies and for trips to and from your place of work. That means when it's time to come back to the States, you aren't trying to buy tickets last minute with no funds. Their overseas care, and the way they prioritize working within teams is excellent. I worked in the home office for awhile and had mostly wonderful interactions there as well. I had one gentleman up the chain of command that was difficult to work with, and he alone is why I am not giving Pioneers five stars. That gentleman is no longer with Pioneers USA. The people within the organization love the Lord, and they try their best to give him glory while providing for the needs of their workers. Like all religious and non-profit organizations, Pioneers is comprised of humans, imperfect beings. They do their best, and they do a great job. It is tough to find, prepare, give ongoing care and then after care for so many people in so many places. I am proud of how well Pioneers does it. read more

Incredible staff who makes you feel like you belong. We had a great introduction to this organization. The more we got to know people the more we were impressed. Would definitely recommend anyone who is looking into cross cultural work to talk with someone from Pioneers. read more

This organization is TERRIBLE. They estimated the cost of my trip would be in the $4000 range. They waited until 5 weeks before we leave to book the flights (which made them incredibly expensive). They made us fly into West Palm Beach, FL just for training, and then fly back into Orlando for debriefing. Those domestic flights cost us $1,200 themselves! Not to mention the flights to our actual country! We had missionary training from our school before the trip. Then Pioneers made us go to additional training that was supposedly "different" from our training. It was EXACTLY THE SAME and I paid about $2000 all together to go to their training. The person who handled our teams logistics was so rude to us. Nothing we said was good enough for her, and she blatantly disregarded all of our requests for information on the trip. I hope this organization goes out of business and a more credible organization appears in its place. Missions trips should not make you frustrated like this when you are going to serve other people. It is not ok to make us pay so much money when we are going to evangelize and spread the gospel. It shouldn't cost us this much, and I'm disgusted with their approach to missions. I've gone on nearly 10 other missions trips before, and NONE of them were as awful as this one due to all of the frustration beforehand. read more