Birgit Herppich (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. She is a native of Germany and served with WEC International as a missionary in Ghana for eight years. She now coordinates the Membership Departments of WEC International.

• Tables and FiguresForeword by Wilbert R. ShenkAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Integral Missionary Training and the Basel MissionPart I: The Community of Practice of the Basel Mission Training Institute1 A Learning Community Shaped by German Pietism2 A Shared Vision of Christian Foreign Mission3 Diverse Participants with a Shared PracticePart II: Indications for Trained Incapacity in the Beginnings of the Basel Mission in Ghana4 The African Context and the Early Basel Mission (1828-1831)5 Andreas Riis's Pioneering (1832-1840)6 Early Failures at Mission Work (1836-1840)Conclusion: Pitfalls of Trained Incapacity in Integral MissionaryTrainingBibliography

Twenty-first-century people are as prone to ethnocentric reaction to other cultures as were explorers, traders, and missionaries two centuries ago. Pitfalls of Trained Incapacity graphically shows that what is learned in one culture as 'state of the art' theory and practice can create enormous barriers to effective engagement with people of another culture. This carefully researched and well-written case study of the group of German missionaries trained at the Basel Missionary Training Institute and sent by the Basel Mission to establish their work in Ghana throws fresh light on the challenges of crossing cultural boundaries.