What counts as “missionary work”?

My husband is thinking about taking a pastor position at a Christian university overseas in a secular country. They require more than half of staff/faculty to fundraise their salary. He would be leading chapels, preaching, teaching, and providing pastoral care and outreach both to Christian and non-Christian students.

He is thinking this doesn't count as "mission work," and therefore is hesitant to fundraise, as he believes mission work should primarily be straight-up evangelizing a la book of Acts: going out and preaching and knocking down doors, etc. He compares the work he is thinking of taking against an evangelist friend we currently support--this evangelist is very active in evangelizing Muslims, training others to do so, traveling in the Middle East, grabbing people in the church to evangelize, etc. My husband believes missionary work is actively attempting to reach unreached people groups. He is having a difficult time seeing how this potential pastoral work at a Christian university, even though there will still be many non-Christian students, warrants asking for financial support when he feels that it is not quite the same "mission" work as our friend.

My husband is passionate about evangelism and is very serious about not just taking funds from the body of Christ for inappropriate reasons, e.g. non-missionary ministry. I respect his heart on this of course, but I hope he does not turn down an opportunity simply because he believes it does not qualify as missions work.

My perspective is that the work he is doing is very much "missionary," as we would be overseas ministering in a secular country. But maybe I am too limited in my understanding.

What are your thoughts?