Mission Impossible: The Unreached Nosu on China's Frontier

Many evangelical mission thinkers are calling for new evangelistic efforts among the unreached peoples of the world. "Mission Impossible" relates the story of one such effort 60 years ago among the still unreached Nosu in what used to be called Eastern Tibet. In this account we have all the drama of frontier missions--war lords, head-taking, opium, revolution, Communists, imprisonment, romance, spies, house-arrest, deportation and death--as well as the unavoidable humdrum of daily living, language study, iinter-personal squabbling, committee meetings and bureaucratic decision-making. The author also assess China's missionary past. Why were the Communists victorious? Could mission agencies have done their work differently? Were missionaries really imperialists? Why, without the presence and help of the missionary deemed so necessary in those days, has the Chinese church grown so remarkably? Was the very missionary presence a hindrance? This book gives tentative answers to these pressing questions.Ralph R. Covell was a missionary to China and Taiwan from 1946 to 1966. From 1982 to 1988 he was editor of "Missiology". Currently he is academic dean and professor of World Mission, emeritus, at Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary. Former books are "Extension Seminary Primer", 1971 (with Peter Wagner), "W.A.P. Martin, Pioneer of Progress in China", 1986.