Story number 1 for 9 May 2002

(USA)–We begin today in the United States where a shortage of short-term overseas workers is a concern for some mission agencies. Send International is one of them. “A lot of churches have backed off on some of the plans they have for sending teams. A lot of college students are looking at ministries in North America as opposed to overseas. And, with the concerns with the situation in the world as well as the economic situation in the United States we’re just looking at a real shortfall – probably 20 to 30-percent down from what we had last year and we were actually looking to have an increase for this upcoming summer.” That’s Send International’s Don Johnson, who says many of the projects will not be completed – hurting outreach in the long run. Is it a crisis? “I really wouldn’t say that it’s a crisis at this point. I would say that if this trend continues over the next two or three years, then short term missions and perhaps missions in general could turn into a crisis because short term missions is where or career missionaries come from.”