Our mission effort and the importance we place on it have changed significantly in the past 100 years, as has our opinion toward missionaries. A hundred years ago it was desirable that a child become a missionary. More to the point, it was a realistic expectation that a child might become a domestic or foreign missionary. Missionaries were talked about, their writings were read, and children were prepared through school and college years to serve in a variety of home and field mission positions. A hundred years ago almost every Adventist knew or knew of someone who was a missionary.
Evidence suggests that now there are very few church members who actually know a missionary.
All too often missionaries are seen as exotic, so much so that they are hard to relate to. Somewhere along the line missionaries stopped being perceived as normal people, regular church members following the call and plan of God. The church has suffered a huge loss because only a minuscule number of people can now envision themselves as being missionaries, either in foreign lands or in the home field. It's time to change the perception that most of us have of missionaries. It's time for us as Adventists to perceive mission activity as at least as normal and desirable as any secular career, if not more so.