You are absolutely correct. While I am sympathetic to the cause of spreading the gospel, this is not the way, the time, or the place. Christian missionaries are a good deal responsible for a communist government in China, where their obnoxious methods of spreading the word led to revolts and instability. There are plenty of souls to save right here in the USA. I do not know if they have visions of being martyrs, or maybe they figured such would happen and look forward to having their faces on all the talk shows. Whatever the case, when we are trying to stabilize the region, we do not need them pouring more gasoline on the fire. Such activities undermine the efforts of our military. If they get their as*ses killed, we should do NOTHING. Those who wish to be martyrs have no right to expect retaliation for their martyrdom.
We're not trying to stabilize the region. We de-stabilized it. Now some of those people are thinking - democracy, maybe freedom.
Freedom means not imprisoning anyone for passing around ideas.
Just a thought. Good night.
My denomination actually has churches in those neighborhoods. (for obvious reasons, I'm not being more specific!)
OTOH, it's rediculously easy to befriend students from those countries who are attending American universities. For the record, Americans are percieved as a cold people, reluctant to interact with those around them. Sociologists call us a "low context culture." By contrast, people from other parts of the world find it natural to be friendly.
SO perhaps, instead of barging through the norms of other cultures, like bulls in a china shop, these sweet godly ladies should crash through ungodly norms in our culture, and extend a friendly invitation to lonely students here.
The founder of a major missions agency, Bob Finley, mused once -- why did Hudson Taylor ignore the thousands of Chinese right there in London? Why did William Carey ignore the thousands of Indians in his own neighborhood? The people from these unreached nations are already here, separated from a suffocating culture of all-embracing islam, often lonely, eager to experience what America has to offer. Delighted to be invited into American homes, to make American friends.
(for the record ... I did the "missionary tourist" thing in 1992, had the most incredible two-week vacation of my life in post-Chernobyl Ukraine -- but achieved little of lasting value that i'm aware of.)