With the world changing so rapidly, and the evangelical church growing in many lands, it is sometimes said that the world no longer needs traditional missionaries. To find out the truth, we interviewed Campus Crusade for Christ's international vice presidents: Thomas Abraham of India (right), who leads the ministry in Asia and Latin America; Dela Adadevoh of Ghana (left), who leads Africa and the Middle East; and Roger Randall (center), an American who leads Eastern and Western Europe.

WWC: What is the role of missionaries in the world today?
Roger: Our ultimate objective, of course, is to raise up indigenous people to lead the ministry. But we can't go out and hire them, due to the nature of what we do. So the role of the expatriate missionary, whether American or Korean or South African or German or whomever, is to win and build nationals who ultimately take the responsibility of the ministry. But we need the foreigners to get things started.
Thomas: With the technical revolutions taking place around the world today, the paradigm of mission work is changing. What we need are people with expertise who can help accelerate the ministry at high levels of society. Village evangelism, to some extent, should be left to national believers. I would recommend that missionaries go to influential places, like Bangkok or Bombay.

WWC: Because if you were to go to Bombay, for example, you would want to go to business leaders, and Campus Crusade of India might not have the resources to do that?
Thomas: Not only that, they don't have the ability to put somebody there, nor even rent a house in Bombay. A staff person in India makes maybe $250 a month, but it costs $500 a month just to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Bombay. So how is he going to survive there?
Dela: We continue to need missionaries in many countries of Africa, especially the larger ones, but the work has to be done under the agenda of the national leadership.
In South Africa, for example, we have good campus ministries under national leadership, but 70 percent of the universities have no staff presence. And South Africa is quite key in the southern Africa region. So it is very appropriate to have Americans, Koreans, Singaporeans or others coming in as missionaries to open new campuses. But in terms of which campuses they open and when, that is the decision of the South African leadership.

WWC: Sometimes we hear reports that Americans are disliked in certain quarters. What is the attitude toward Americans?
Thomas: Americans are probably beaten up in the news media, but they are appreciated very much. Foreigners in general are appreciated in most countries because that is the culture of the country.
Dela: I would add that it depends on the character of the missionary. A spiritual American will be loved in any part of Africa. But when you have issues of arrogance, or looking down on nationals, the person is not appreciated.

WWC: What challenges face American missionaries?
Roger: I think a big challenge is what the secular world calls globalization. We might think of it in the positive sense of the global mission enterprise, but in the activist world it means the recolonization of the world by the major industrial countries, particularly the United States, and using people for the accomplishment of their goals.
So it's important that as Americans come they demonstrate love, they demonstrate understanding, they demonstrate dignity to the host culture. And that quickly sets them apart.
On the other hand, there is a global youth culture strongly influenced by MTV and the American media scene. So being an American working with young people is generally an advantage.
Thomas: That brings to mind the area of communications. The technical revolution is absolutely incredible. We cannot fake anything. When something happens in the United States, the country will often know about it before the missionary. As a result, missionaries need to be technically and intellectually at the highest plateau.
Dela: Another challenge today is that you may be working with nationals who are better trained and more spiritually mature than you are. In some cases they have more experience than you do. So it's a new situation where you are working with them not as the expert, but the partner.
Thomas: Today the missionary should not be looking for followers, but leaders. That's a tremendous difference.
Roger: Speaking of developing leaders, a challenge for Americans is that we too easily forget the power of the dollar. It's easy to create dependency, because for $100 a month or $200 a month, a local missionary can be fully supported. But if we as Americans take that on, we rob the person of the opportunity to build a local base of funding and prayer. He's always looking outside the country for resources. There's something really good about making sure that the national leaders we work with raise at least some portion of their funds within the country.

WWC: In light of the emerging national church in many parts of the world, is there still a need for Americans to go overseas as missionaries?
Dela: I think there is too much work to do to say that Americans are no longer needed. But what is important, like I said earlier, is that national leaders set the priorities for the country. And we need to remember that America is not the only missionary-sending country in the world. Korea is getting involved in a big way, Singapore has done some good work, and other countries are sending missionaries as well.
Thomas: I want to emphasize that American missionaries are still needed in most of the world. Not necessarily foot-soldiers in the villages, but individuals with specific gifts and talents to reach higher-level people.
Roger: There are not many places where just plain being an American disqualifies you. The key is being a loving, caring human being.

WWC: How about long-term missionaries? With the wave of short-term mission projects, how great a need is there for people to invest years on the foreign mission field?
Roger: In Europe, the preference is for long-term people. Short-term people serve a couple of very important roles: First, they make a big impact in a short time. Second, they can do things in closed countries that a long-term person could not do.
We see the short-term as a natural way for people to get their feet wet, see the culture and how they respond to it, and whether they enjoy being there. But we suggest it as a first step. The problem is when people begin to think, "I've done my mission thing, so I don't need to seriously pray about whether the Lord would have me go there long term."
That becomes a trap. We thank the Lord for short-term missionaries, and we strongly support the concept. But we want people to seriously consider coming back for a longer period. The people who really make a sustainable difference are the people who come and learn the language, who dig in and do the discipleship as well as the evangelism. Also those who help long term in administration, and not all those people need to learn the language.

WWC: To wrap things up, what is the most important thing our readers should know?
Roger: There's a tremendous need for people to go and get involved in evangelism and discipleship, short or long term, and to pray.
That's the overwhelming need: prayer. Pray and come. And don't forget to give.

For more information on mission opportunities within Campus Crusade for Christ, call 1-888-272-4442 or visit www.harvest2000.org/international.