Working for the Lord?

Something another member of my office said today made my head want to blow up and made my heart feel pain...

The uninformed, ignorant thought she spurted out went something like this...
" You know those people are real missionaries- they actually suffered...missionaries today are so comfortable- they have running water. The good old days with Hudson Taylor and with Elizabeth Elliot- those people were REAL missionaries." And no, I didn't misunderstand her, she went on this tangent for a good 5 minutes.

WHAT???

Does anyone else see a problem with this? Is this what people actually think? I feel like giving up.

Here are a few arguments:
1- Christianity is a call to suffer- its not just for missionaries and its not just for pastors- Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow him. Her definition of suffering then is not all inclusive- her definition would leave all Christians homeless, living in tents with...no running water. She has a multi level condo. This is a bad an uninformed definition of suffering.

2-If we have a missionary that goes to Europe in down town London to reach the Muslim population that lives there and that person lives in a dump with little to no food and no hair cuts or soap, how well do you think a dirty looking person will do to witness to these Muslims who look at Christians like they are unintelligent and incompetent when it comes to spiritual matters? Not only that, we all judge on appearance. Paul's principle rings true here- "To the Jews I became as a Jew, to the Romans a Roman..." If you want to reach the Wudoni, you become like a Wudoni (the original name for the tribe that outsiders called them was Auca Indians- Auca is a harsh word used meaning "naked savage"- The Wudoni's prefer you say Wudoni- because of Christ, they may be a little naked, but they are no longer savages :) )

3- The missionaries she mentioned didn't have running water because it wasn't available to them. If the Wudoni tribe had running water I'm sure Elizabeth Elliot would have been the first to use it. If you move cross culturally to a city you have to live with those people- you have to dress (without testing biblical limits of modesty) and learn the lingo and the jokes and how they decorate if you ever want to be submerged into the culture.

I guess we all have places in our lives where we lack knowledge and times when we all speak a little too quickly. One day when the curtain raises and the full glory of the Lord is revealed to all his creation we'll all know. But until that day she'll live in ignorance and I'll play the fool.