Leroy Eims tells about visiting a foreign mission field and talking with a veteran missionary:

He told me a story that still haunts me; I can't get it out of my mind. He had gone overseas some 15 years before we met and began the usual programs. About the time he arrived on the field, he met a young man named Johnny, who was involved in something quite different.

Johnny was a committed disciple of Jesus Christ, but he was going about his ministry in all the wrong ways according to the "book." In contrast to the typical missionary approach, Johnny was spending the bulk of his time meeting with a few young men in that country. The veteran missionary tried to get Johnny straightened out, but the young man kept on with his "different" approach. The years passed, and the veteran missionary now had to leave the country of his service due to new visa restrictions.

As he sat across the coffee table from me in his home, he told me, "Leroy, I've got little to show for my time here. Oh, there is a group of people who meet in our assembly, but I wonder what will happen to them when I leave. They are not disciples. They have been faithful in listening to my sermons, but they do not witness. Few of them know how to lead another person to Christ. They know nothing about discipling others. And now that I am leaving, I can see I've all but wasted my time here.

"Then I look at what has come out of Johnny's life. One of the men he worked with is now a professor at the university. This man is mightily used of God to reach and train scores of university students. Another is leading a witnessing and discipling team of about 40 young men and women. Another is in a nearby city with a group of 35 growing disciples around him. Three have gone to other countries as missionaries and are now leading teams who are multiplying disciples. God is blessing their work. I see the contrast between my life and Johnny's, and it is tragic. I was so sure I was right. What he was doing seemed so insignificant, but now I look at the results, and they are staggering."