"You have to "go" to another country to be a missionary. For many years we have made the distinction between "foreign missions" and "home missions." Some churches have even decided that they want all of their mission funds to go "overseas" rather than to be used here in North America (implying that this is not the real mission field).
.........A few years ago one missionary family had to leave an overseas ministry because of problems. The Lord opened a door to work among immigrants from the same ethnic people group in one of North America's large metropolitan areas. They had changed geography, but not people group. When one of their large supporting churches heard that they had come "home" they dropped their support, saying "Let us know if you ever go back to the field. " In the USA they were working within 50 miles of at least 100,000 people from the same ethnic group and were touching the lives of many of them. After a few years of effective ministry in spite of living under the stress of very inadequate support, they went overseas to a third country to target the same group again. The church immediately resumed their support, even though that third nation contained only 5,000 to 10,000 of those people.
(Dick Baily: "Who's turning the mission field up side down, EMQ January 2001)
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