Volume 42 – Issue 2

When I began my missionary career in the Philippines in 1986, making a long-distance telephone call was a major project. Very few private homes had telephones so there weren’t many people to call anyway.

In one week I heard three references to the importance of nationalization in mission. During a meeting, one of our missionary staff said, “If our sole purpose for being on the mission field is nationalization, then…” Later, another missionary asked, “Isn’t nationalization our primary reason for being a missionary?”

With eighty-two million inhabitants, Germany continues to be a desperate mission field in need of thousands of new churches. The good news is that over 1,500 new churches have been planted in Germany in the past ten years, with a total membership of well over 100,0001 (“In Deutschland wurden…” 2004, 16).

Sometimes you’ve just got to go back to the basics. When Vince Lombardi, former coach of the National Football League’s Green Bay Packers, wanted to stop the team’s losing streak, he started by telling his players, “This is a football.”

Twice a week for two years I commuted across Nairobi, Kenya, to teach at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. During these commutes, I regularly passed a business with the unique and descriptive name “The Really Useful Landscaping Company.”

Short-term medical teams take many forms and serve in many ministry settings. This article is limited to general medical teams.

This is what an African national staff member told his Western missionary leader after ten years of working with a parachurch organization: “You have really ruined me. I don’t know how to survive now without my laptop and the standard of living I am accustomed to. I don’t think I can ever go back to how I lived before.”