Proverbs 16:2

All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.

Part of what is difficult about frontier mission work is the motivation. There have been times in Church history when mission work was misused by people who used it to expand the political power of an empire. Certainly David Livingstone had mixed motives for spending 33 years exploring Africa’s interior. What he did helped British colonial interests, but it also served to expand the gospel as he preached to tribes yet unreached.