How would you like to have a job where you were the only person to give a report of your activities to your boss, and then the boss evaluated you on the basis of your own report? That's the system currently used in missions.
Your observer found this to be true in 1968, when he first took up the task of "foreign missionary." Then we had no telephone connections to the home base in the US, and a letter took a month to arrive. Visitors came maybe once a year, each time a different set of representatives from the home office. Just about the only information they had to go on were the reports that I myself had sent to them. They could not talk to the "natives" due to language barriers. The missionary staff were under strict orders to report through the career clergy missionary, and not send personal reports or information to the home base.
Soon the situation changed. Mission personnel balked at the restrictions on the free flow of information. Everybody started sending mail to the folks at home, so-called "Newsletters," currently commonly called "Prayer Letters." Little by little economical and swift communication methods developed, and travel became easier. Then, the FAX, and finally THE INTERNET and Email. Time differences no longer mattered. The era of inexpensive, virtually instantaneous communication arrived.
Also, inexpensive and safe transportation coupled with expendable income make it easy for vistors and tourists from the home country to appear on the "mission field" at any moment.
Add to that, a highly literate local population. Language is no longer a barrier. Computer translation programs make all the material of the InterNet available to anyone anywhere, in virtually any language. Now, the local "natives" could see the pictures the missionaries used and read the stories they wrote to promote their activities. Most missionaries have yet to realize how these pictures and stories are viewed by the local people.
The modern missionary might well long for the former system, when he/she alone reported on activities. Those days are gone. A simple Google search can turn up information about any missionary and any missionary activity or missionary project. The local people can easily access this material and learn about the donors, the purposes and goals of the missionary and his/her project, the money involved -- it's all public information once it gets on the Net. And the archives one can access sometimes go back a number of years.
In spite of these advances, most large mission organizations continue to use the method used back in the 60s and 70s; periodic written reports and periodic visits by mission officials. And they act as if they can keep information out of the hands of the local people.
Again we say, those days are gone. Your observer suggests that mission organizations develop new methods for the Communication Age.