Lesson #1: It's God's Job
Let's get this clear from the start; There are no special qualifications, no classes, no tests.  One day you get a call from your daughter and she says, "Mom & Dad, I think God wants me to go to the foreign mission field." and Voila you are suddenly the parents of a missionary.
Our initial reaction was one of excitement, awe, and gratefulness for what God was doing in our daugher's life.  But it didn't take long for reality to settle in.  The questions that bombarded my mind.  Where would she go?  What are the living conditions? How will she learn the language?  How often would I see or talk to her?  She's single, who will look out for her?  I felt like I needed to come up with all the answers. I had to work it all out.  How ridiculous, I can see it now!  But in those first emotional weeks God took me on my own journey.  It was God's job to take care of her.  It always was really, but now He was forcing me to take my hands off.  I had no choice but to "turn her over" to Him.  I thought I had done that the day she was born and many times over between then and now...but here I was again surrendering my will for my little girl.  Our daughter would be a long way away, and alone.  Not alone, in the hand of the One True Living God, the only One who could truly protect her.  It's His job.
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.  My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."  John 10:27-29