WWRN

As a preacher's kid growing up in rural Virginia, Rob Moor was fascinated by the foreign missionaries who visited his father's church with their stories of exotic lands and harrowing adventures as they risked their lives spreading the Gospel.

Now Moor tells his own tales, of aiding Rwandan refugees within earshot of the gunfire of civil war, of living in the African bush with Masai tribesmen in Tanzania.

"I have one of the most exciting jobs in the world," said Moor, 47, who, with his wife, Lisa, has served for the past 13 years as a Baptist missionary. "My job is sort of like Indiana Jones, the Crocodile Hunter and Billy Graham all rolled into one."

His job is also becoming one of the most dangerous.

In the past two years, American missionaries have been gunned down in the Philippines, Lebanon and Yemen.

A plane with missionaries mistaken for drug traffickers was shot down by the Peruvian military, killing a woman and her infant child. And missionaries detained by the Taliban in Afghanistan made headlines before they were rescued by American special forces.

Experts point to two reasons for the increased danger: Missionaries are increasingly going into areas, particularly politically unstable Muslim countries, where any activity promoting religious conversion is prohibited.

And instead of the traditional missionary whose commitment is open-ended, a rapidly growing number are short-timers who don't know the language or culture in a nation that may be hostile to Christianity.

While U.S. Catholic missionaries and Mormons are a major presence around the world, the ranks of missionaries from mainline Christian churches have been surpassed by Americans sent abroad by evangelical denominations such as the Southern Baptists or by nondenominational evangelical groups. More than half of the U.S.-based mission agencies identified themselves as evangelical in a 2000 survey.

The 10/40 Window

Spurred by what Christians call "the Great Commission," the command from Jesus to preach the Gospel to all nations, evangelical Christians have been increasingly targeting what they have dubbed the "10/40 Window," a geographical swath that includes the countries that lie between the latitudes 10 degrees and 40 degrees north, from West Africa to East Asia - an area that includes most of the world's Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.

"The so-called 10/40 Window, and other regions around that window, are the last frontier," said Gary Baldridge, who coordinates missions for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. "They contain the people groups, tribes, whatever, who have had the least opportunity historically to receive a traditional Christian witness."

The push to send missionaries to the 10/40 Window began in the mid-1980s and escalated with the approach of the millennium. The Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, for example, has about 30 percent of its 5,487 missionaries serving in the 10/40 Window, up from about 1 percent 15 years ago.

While American missionaries make up only 10 percent of those worldwide, missions officials say they are the most threatened, particularly since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Officials expect the threat to increase, especially in the Muslim world, as the United States prepares for war against Iraq.

"The radical Muslims do see Christianity as the nose in the door," said Jonathan J. Bonk, executive director of the Overseas Missions Study Center and editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research. "It's the nose of the huge juggernaut they see as Western decadence. Local culture is demasculated, and the ground is prepared for whatever the West wants to do."

That was apparently the motive of the Muslim gunman who walked into the Baptist hospital in Jibla, Yemen, on Dec. 30, cradling a gun as if it were a baby before opening fire, killing three medical missionaries and wounding a fourth.

The hospital had been the target of threats over the years, and the alleged assailant told authorities after his arrest that the Americans were preaching Christianity and that he wanted to "cleanse his religion and get closer to God."

Some missionaries have complained that evangelical leaders including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham and Southern Baptist Convention President Jerry Vines have disparaged Muslims.

"We are not sure if you are aware of the ramifications that comments that malign Islam and Muhammad have not only on the message of the gospel but also upon the lives of our families as we are living in the midst of already tense times," a group of Southern Baptists working in Muslim countries wrote to church leaders in a letter made public last week.

Short-term stays

The hazards of missionary life may also be increasing because of the rapidly escalating numbers of Christian groups and local churches that are sending abroad short-term evangelists, some for as little as a week, others for a few months.

While the number of U.S. full-time missionaries has remained constant over the past decade, the number of short-timers has increased greatly, from 64,000 in 1996 to nearly 100,000 in 1999. Missions officials consider those figures low because individual churches that send short-term missionaries often aren't counted.

Critics, who dismiss such efforts as "missionary tourism," say the inability of short-term missionaries to speak the language and their lack of familiarity with local customs and taboos can, and have, led to clashes with local authorities.

Something seemingly as innocuous as a man and woman holding hands can cause a near-riot in some conservative cultures, as would a woman wearing shorts or other clothing considered indecent.

J. Dudley Woodberry, professor of Islamic Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., said that short-time missionaries often lack the proper orientation and will, for example, distribute Christian tracts in a society that prohibits proselytizing.

"Some of the groups that have gone to Afghanistan short term have handed out literature. It's fine to go and try to help in little ways," he said. "But it's not helpful to those ministering according to the rules."

Close monitoring

But groups that support short-term missionaries say they are closely monitored by on-site personnel, who are often nationals working for the agency. And such trips, they contend, offer great benefits.

"Probably the greatest is the change in the person who goes and not what they do there," said Phyllis DeSmit, who coordinates mission programs for in Towson.

DeSmit's church supports 85 mission projects and about 40 long-term missionaries in places such as Kenya, Brazil and Cambodia, in addition to sponsoring short-term mission trips. Last year, which was typical, Central Presbyterian sent 32 youths on trips to the Dominican Republic and Mexico and a delegation of 13 adults to Kenya.

DeSmit said each prospective missionary is screened to determine why he or she wants to go. "We wouldn't want it to be a vacation motive or an adventure. We would want them to have a heartfelt motive for going," she said.

In addition, some people who had never considered a mission vocation discover during a short trip that they'd like to make a longer commitment. "And if they had been thinking of that and the whole thing turned out to be distasteful, they would know that 'maybe I need to pursue this in another way,' " she said.

'The needs of today'

Missionary experts say the trend toward short-term stays is likely to continue because many young people are unwilling to make the lifetime commitments that the traditional missionary was expected to make.

At one time, "there was a sense that when you went to the mission field, it was for life and you would never return," said Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International, a Front Royal, Va., organization that assists persecuted Christian communities.

"Today there's much more of a sense that 'I'll serve in a mission field for a year or two years and then come back,' " said Jacobson. "It's an approach that meets the needs of today. When you've finished a job today, you should move on and go to some place where there's a need."

Veteran missionaries say that lack of a long-term assignment will make it harder to succeed, particularly in places such as the 10/40 Window, where evangelism is a subtle art.

"The old days of missionaries who were preacher boys are over when it comes to being effective in the toughest places of the world. Because those are places with governments that are hostile to Christianity," said Baldridge of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. "But those governments have great needs for people to meet in their communities. They kind of look the other way when it comes to the religion that comes with that community help."

As a result, missionaries who want to work in countries that prohibit proselytism must have other skills they can ply and must apply for visas as doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers or for whatever job they will be permitted to perform.

Respecting beliefs

In this context, preaching the Gospel becomes somewhat of a passive affair. Most missionaries in that situation will not talk about their faith unless someone else asks a direct question.

"We would want to respect governmental restrictions and the beliefs of people," said Wendy Norvelle, spokeswoman for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. "Many times the conversation comes from a person there who asks, 'Why would you care enough to provide for us?' And we would answer, 'I believe I'm commanded to do this because of a God who loves me and a God who loves you in Jesus Christ.'"

Low-key approach

Although Moor, the Baptist missionary in Tanzania, doesn't face the same religious prohibitions, he approaches his ministry in much the same low-key way. He and his wife are on a yearlong furlough in the United States and have spent years becoming fluent in Swahili, the national language of Tanzania. In the past few years they have begun studying Maa, the language of the Masai.

The Moors live in a simple but fairly modern house outside a Masai village. Their task is to start churches, but they also assist with material needs, such as helping construct cisterns to store water and dispensing medicine. In the past 3 1/2 years, the Moors' mission has started a new church and another preaching outpost and baptized 70 Masai.

Moor spends much of his days preaching, teaching and sometimes just visiting people in the villages. "In learning language and learning culture, you begin to know them," he said. "It's something you do to basically win the right to be heard."