Osborn Ministries International birthed the National Missionary Assistance Program in 1953. In 1954, this program began sponsoring nationals to go to their own people and called them missionaries. Prior to that time the term “missionary” referred to foreigners who traveled to other nations to deliver the Christian faith. Nationals (citizens of individual nations) had never been recognized, supported, or respected as “missionaries” to their own unreached tribes and villages. T. L.’s ministry was the first to call the national, a missionary to his own people. In that day, many foreign nations, especially in Africa, were under colonialism, and only the foreigner could be called a missionary. So in essence, guerilla warfare led to the beginning of national missionaries. Once again, T.L. became a pioneer. This time he pioneered indigenous evangelismthat positioned and equipped native ministers to reach their own people. If they would go into a completely unreached area where there was no gospel witness and establish a church, his ministry would assist them. They would help them establish a church and support them for twelve to eighteen months. A bona fide program of accountability was used. Today the same forms, principles, and accountability guidelines are applied as they were in 1954. LaDonna ( TL Osborn’s daughter ) pointed out that some things about ministry should never change. Out of that one program, in cooperation with the Christian partners of Osborn Ministries International, over 30,000 national preachers have received financial assistance, allowing them to labor full time as missionaries to their own and neighboring tribes and villages that had been previously untouched by the gospel. In addition, more than 150,000 new, self-supporting churches have been established globally, with as many as 400 new churches being planted a year. T. L.’s effort to make the revival overseas into a truly native experience, instead of an American program, was an important contribution to the world pentecostal revival, and its success was one of his proudest achievements. Many of today’s national church leaders began in ministry as national preachers, encouraged and sponsored by T. L. and Daisy’s Ministry. David Nunn, a renowned evangelist who experienced tremendous healings and miracles and had traveled widely overseas, shared in regard to T. L. Osborn’s pioneering of indigenous evangelism: He’s got a great concept. To me, he provides...from the mission standpoint, one of the greatest leaderships of any man to come up in the last hundred years. In challenging the old line churches to change [their] old policies that never have worked properly, [the kind of policy] that brings down the people into servitude and makes them houseboys, and to lift those men up to where they belong as children of God and proud of their national heritage with confidence in them that they’ve got ability and that they can carry out the work of evangelizing their own countries. - 📕 TL OSBORN LEGACY OF FAITH. - JESUS SAVES TV