Non-Western missionaries are lacking of needed training?

Suh Jung-Woon, wrote an interesting article entitled, Mission of the Korean Church

In it, he evaluated Korean missionaries' involvement in World Mission and some of the problems associated with them. Below is an excerpt that is related to the paper that I am writing.


Considering the question of missionaries, the first problem is selection. It is too easy for the Korean church to select a missionary. Not only the candidate, but also his/her family and educational background have to be thoroughly examined.

The second problem is training. An OMF report, saying that the percentage of drop-outs of missionaries in the Third World countries is higher than that of Western countries, pointed out that the main reason for this is the lack of needed training. This indicates that many missionaries who received no training or were inappropriately trained have gone to the mission fields, and Korean missionaries are no exception.

"Inappropriate" mission training refers to the situation that results when mission instructors don't have experience in mission fields and can only speak theoretically. It is true that because of the short history of world mission involvement by Third World, people without practical experience are participating in mission training.

Suh Jung-Woon, Ph.D., an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of Korea, for many years was Professor of Missiology at San Francisco Theological Seminary. He currently is President and Professor of Missiology at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Seoul, Korea. The following text was presented as part of a conference on World Mission and the Role of Korean Churches, held in Seoul, Korea.

Is this a fair statement about non-Western missionaries? If yes, what needs to be done to overcome this lack of training? Why are Asian lay leaders and potential missionaries' adverse to receive training? Why do so many of them resist the idea of going to seminary for a couple of years? Why do they think that they will be more effective without training, when others who have received some training still feel inadequate? Why are churches and board members reluctant to invest money, time and effort to help their lay leaders to become more effective ministers and missionaries?