That being said, the writer does have a good point. The world is much different today that it was 500 or 2000 years ago. Governments behave much differently. In our day and age, it should be expected that a missionary's mere presence overseas ay result in men being sent in harm's way to protect or rescue you.
Pleading for your government to appease (read: stregthen) the enemy or to send men to die to save you is a far different cry that Paul appealing to Roman law as a Roman citizen. It's something modern-day missionaries need to acknowledge and prepare for.
I agree. And furthermore, every one of the foreign missionaries who I know, including my own daughter, do acknowledge that and have prepared themselves to bear whatever price they must pay to carry out the job they were called to do.
Those Christians who are not intimate;y involved in Christian foreign mission outreach usually don't realize the degree of consecration and devotion to Jesus Christ that is required to faithfully fulfill the call to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the unbelieving world. Instead of criticizing those Korean Christians for being a burden on our already over-extended troops, we should be praying that God will deliver them from their Islamic captors without putting anyone else in danger.