Salary
Average Salary: $49,800
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $2,100,000
Warning: Conversations about money between churches and missionaries can get incredibly awkward. Because what missionary wants to admit they care about earthly trappings like "income" and "rent" and "food on the table"? Wait, actually most missionaries should give serious thought to all of these. Push aside your shyness about money, and start getting real about whether you can financially afford to live for a year, two years, a decade, in a foreign country.
Your salary as a foreign missionary will depend almost entirely on the country you're living in, the type of support you receive from home, and the type of work you're doing. Some missionaries will make just $2 a day, the bare minimum to survive, while some experienced foreign ministers who cut a good deal with their church can earn around $80k per year.
Here's some good news: For the most part, you're in control of this number. Provided you can find someone to finance you, you pretty much set your own budget by talking to missionaries currently working at your intended site or in similar locations. Sounds simple, huh? It is. Dangerously so, in fact.
Now that so many missionaries are going abroad with just the support of friends or family, there's no real accountability mechanism in place. Missionaries can pretty easily blow their budgets, or their donors can’t pay what they thought they could. And then you end up in a foreign country with no money, no food, 30 days left on your rented sublet, and whatever limited benefits package you thought to request.
Bottom line: If it seems too good to be true, it is. Think realistically about your expenses and your source of funding.