The spoken verse hung in the air like the dust raised by a passing truck. The men and women in the church in Ghana waited expectantly following the reading from the Vagla New Testament.

The converted Muslim imam closed all the windows, dropped the shades, and quietly, cautiously played the forbidden tape—an ancient psalm of David in the style of the minaret so familiar to him. With an exhilarating mixture of fear and joy he allowed the missionary to share this unique and wonderful moment with him.

Reading Fortune magazine is not part of my routine, although I must confess that mission work at the end of the century shares some of the characteristics of international business operations.

Scripture shows that God has never been entirely predictable. Who could have foreseen his decision to wipe out most of humanity and start over with Noah and his family?

Eleven years ago my wife and I moved in among the unreached. We surveyed our area and found no believers, not one. They were unresponsive, too. I still remember planning and praying for our first event.

We see our friends in support roles as “the forgotten missionaries.”

When we went to Belgium in 1982, our daughter was 4 years old. Like Belgian children that age, she was expected to be in school seven and a half hours a day. So, four days after our arrival on the field, we enrolled our excited little girl, armed with a shiny new book bag, new pencils, and a new eraser.