American Missionaries: A Waste of Money?

I just finished reading Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan. It's a fairly easy read (I finished it in about six or so hours) and you can order a free copy at the Gospel for Asia website, gfa.org .

The author is a native-born Indian who now lives in Dallas, Texas. He has spent the past twenty-five years of his life informing Americans of his countrymen's desperate need to hear the Gospel. After being at CRU for two years and hanging out with Justin Tucker for five minutes, I wasn't surprised at Yohannan's claim. What grabbed my attention is the suggested method of reaching the millions of lost people in India -- native missionaries.

Native missionaries are, well, native to their land and are trying to establish churches among their own people group or tribal areas within their national boarders. Barriers that a Westerner might face (such as language and culture) are almost non-existent, and since they are already in the country they can perform the work of the Gospel without all the money an American missionary might need. According to Yohannan, an American missionary needs about 30,000 -40,000 dollars a year to support themselves. In comparison, the most a native missionary would need is $120 a month, or $1440 a year, but they can do fine on $30 a month, or $360 a year! Had I gone to India this summer, my airfare alone would've supported a native missionary for nearly four years!

Yohannan's objective in this book is convince American's that native missionaries are the new wave, and that Western missionaries, although not obsolete, are not as necessary as they once were. Over the course of 200pages, Yohannan successfully achieves this and leaves me with a question:

Why are some many American Christian organizations making such a big push for my generation to go overseas in light of Yohannan's information on the effectiveness of native missionaries? It seems that it is fruitless work to pay a group of people to travel America in efforts to convince people my age to do a work being carried out by others. Not only that, but after these traveling teams go through, it appears that no one's heart has changed. Of all my friends at Texas State and more specifically CRU, I only know of two people who are sold-out future missionaries, and Justin is the only man I know taking active steps to achieve that dream by going to the extra trouble of learning a difficult language that few will teach. If anyone else mentions mission work, a wistful expression overcomes their face, and they say, "Well, I would like to go to ____." And it ends there.

Furthermore, after these faint embers of missions cool to nothing but ashes, my generation is left with nothing practical. We are not told how we can advance God's work across the globe while we stay in San Marcos, Austin, College Station, or whatever college town we are in. We understand missions are good, but we don't see our roll. What we need is man like K.P. Yohannan to tell us how to support our brothers and sisters in Asia as they are beaten, starved, and stoned for the cause of Christ. If we stopped drinking Dr. Pepper and eating bags of chips, and instead opted for tap water and an apple, we would save at least two dollars a day. Over a period of a month, that is sixty dollars, enough to support two missionaries, so that they can better provide for their families, so that they can afford something as simple as a pair of shoes, or even a bicycle.

I'm tired of hearing college students complaining about their financial situation. Has anyone examined the way we live? Someone who lives on campus not only has a place to sleep everynight, we get two to three meals a day and we have a medical center. Gas prices are ridiculous, if we walked more often (hint hint -- CRU on Thursday nights), that extra money could go to missions. We say we need new clothes because what we have is old and slightly faded, but our brothers and sisters in India are wearing garments that "would not be fit for cleaning rags in America," according to Yohannan. We need to readjust our priorities and realize that CD we want, or that computer, isn't nearly as important as giving money to those who will share the Gospel with the untold millions in Asia.

Dan