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Mission Destination Research

Choosing where to go on a mission is a logistics, legal, and safety decision alongside a spiritual one. Some countries welcome foreign missionaries. Others tolerate them with restrictions. A few will arrest you.

Religious Freedom Indexes

The Pew Research Center's Government Restrictions Index tracks government-imposed religious restrictions across 198 countries. In 2022 (the most recent data), 59 countries had "high" or "very high" levels of government restrictions on religion, a record. China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, and Algeria rank at the top.

The Social Hostilities Index from the same dataset measures religion-related social conflict, including mob violence, sectarian tensions, and harassment. Nigeria and India score worst here.

These two indexes measure different things. A country can have low government restrictions but high social hostility (India), or high government restrictions but lower social conflict (some Central Asian states).

Visa Accessibility

Religious worker visas exist in many countries, but the requirements vary. The US R-1 visa requires 2 years of membership in the sponsoring religious organization. Recent reciprocity schedule changes in July 2025 reduced visa validity periods for religious workers from dozens of countries, with many cut to 3-month, single-entry.

In Europe, most countries handle religious workers under general work visa categories. Germany issues residence permits for religious workers under Section 18 of the Residence Act, but the sponsoring organization must demonstrate the role can't be filled locally.

Countries that explicitly restrict or ban foreign missionary activity include China (foreign nationals cannot proselytize), Saudi Arabia (non-Islamic religious practice is severely restricted), North Korea, and several Central Asian states like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan where religious activity requires government registration.

Existing Mission Infrastructure

Going where there's already a network vs. pioneering a new field are fundamentally different operations. The Joshua Project tracks unreached people groups by country and provides data on existing Christian presence by region.

For Catholic missions, the Pontifical Mission Societies coordinate global mission activity. Protestant and evangelical missions are more decentralized, with organizations like the IMB, CMS, and SIM maintaining country-specific assessments.

Practical things to evaluate:

  • Housing and logistics support. Is there a mission compound or team, or are you arranging everything independently?
  • Legal entity. Does the mission organization have registered NGO or religious organization status in the destination country? This affects your visa options.
  • Emergency evacuation plans. In politically unstable regions, established organizations typically have protocols.

Language Barriers

Long-term mission work requires real language proficiency, typically B2 or higher in the local language. Some mission organizations require language school before deployment. Others expect you to learn on the ground, an approach with a high dropout rate. Learning Swahili, Mandarin, or Arabic to conversational fluency takes 1-3 years of dedicated study.

Countries where English or French are widely spoken (much of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Philippines, parts of the Caribbean) lower the initial barrier. But even there, local languages dominate in rural areas where mission work often concentrates.