Story number 3 for 2 Nov 1999

Mission groups in the United States are having a difficult time replacing missionaries ending work in the field. Missionary data indicates as five people return from the field through retirement or other reasons, only one takes their place. Action International’s Marvin Graves explains why. “My experience has been that it’s hard to find those who want to commit to a lifetime, or a career, like some of us who started out in the 50’s. We never thought of just short term. We made commitments for life. Many of the folks these days they think more of short term.” Graves says Action has many needs. “We’re needing missionaries in all the fields we’re working in. We have requests from our missionaries for many more workers for just about every job description you can think of. We’re just needing over 170 missionaries at this time.” The United States is quickly falling from the top missionary sending countries in the world.