Your church wants to start a ministry. Hispanic ministry. Obviously, you need someone who speaks Spanish, preferably someone Hispanic.

“What about that preacher we worked with on our mission trip to Guatemala?” someone suggests, “He was a hard worker.”

So you contact Brother Gonzalez and offer him five times the support he’s currently getting to move to the States. He gratefully accepts. And everyone lives happily ever after, right?

Wrong. The church in Guatemala (or wherever) is weakened. It’s quite possible that Brother Gonzalez’ family will go through serious strains in the transition. And there’s not much correlation between being a good minister in Guatemala and being a good Hispanic minister in the States. At best, you can probably hope to build a nice congregation of Guatemalan immigrants.

I’m not saying you can’t ever hire someone from another country. I’m just saying that there are a lot of questions to ask: about how the church in the other country will be affected, about how the minister’s family will be affected, about why they are wanting to leave their home country, and about how well they will be able to work in the States. More times than not, you’re better off finding someone who is already living in the U.S.