Missionaries to closed countries often do not advertize their training.
Many missionaries have "dual" educations (e.g., I am a registered nurse and am ___ trained as well as a minister). When going into a hostile country they attain their visa by way of the secular education. U2U me for more details.
I do have one comment that some might disagree with - which is why I am posting it (to stir the pot and shake people out of some of our established Western "traditions" of how mission work ought to be done):
I know several men from India who are Reformed missionaries cross-culturally to their own country. India is diverse and these men feel a burden for the other people groups (such as those in Nagpur, Uttar Pradesh and the NE)...truly another culture, even if within the same national boundaries.
Ministering to very poor people and away from their home churches, these sound, solid missionaries needed considerable support (which came from the US).
Because they were reformed, however, they were squeezed into the US Reformed mold.
Before many US reformed churches would support them, they were required to raise the funds, travel to the US, spend 4 years in seminary (one went to Covenant and one to RTS) and then go back to India to minister in his own country cross-culturally as a missionary with US support.
In other words, they stopped their vital ministries in order to pursue and American education in order to minister in a country in which they grew up in - all in order to meet some perceived neccessity placed on them by American churches who were controlling the purse strings.
I think our Western "hoops" often get in the way of Gospel work!
