Our generation is seeing fewer and fewer missionaries spend their entire missionary career in one place.

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).