Thoughts on Missions

This is a religion book. On the way to a meeting yesterday I heard an interview from a local radio station. The interview was with a ministry that was working in Eastern Europe. This particular person told a story about how their ministry had been used by God to go into a town that local churches felt was closed to receiving the Gospel. He told how one of their associates had taken it upon herself to go to this town to share the gospel by starting up kids clubs. He went on to to share that because she was American, she was accepted in the town when local Christians were not. He shared their ministry’s success in advancing the Gospel in this town. This is a great story about light coming into darkness and people responding to it, right? I could not help but wonder what message the local body of Christ took from this experience. Could it be that they began to think that God cannot use them to reach their own people? Could it be that they started believing that Americans (or Westerners in general) do a better job at ministering to the hard to reach places in their own countries and communities? I want to be clear that I am not judging the motive or sincerity with which this ministry had entered this town. Obviously, God uses all of us to share the light of Christ, and Americans/Westerners have had the means and opportunity to send people around the world to share His message of hope and light.