Armed forces have also demolished about 100 churches and other religious structures. One report says 39 Buddhist monastics have been killed, and 40 imprisoned since the coup began in February of 2021.

Greg Kelley with World Mission says, “They’re going into these villages and destroying them, burning huts to the ground, raping the women, and killing people. We identified about 200 families that our team is working with right now. These people need the basics. They need food, shelter, clothing, blankets, and medicine.”

“We’ve been able to provide for all 200 families. We brought them to safety. Now they’re in a training center that World Mission has established.”

The strategy comes as the anti-coup resistance gains traction in Myanmar, and as many soldiers desert their posts. In fact, an underground network of civilians is helping soldiers and police officers defect from their positions and flee to safety. To fight the military, civilians around the country have organized and armed themselves, often with the help of pre-existing militias.

Evangelism

World Mission has also shared the story of Jesus with these people, many of whom had never heard of Him before. Kelley says, “Our team didn’t even know about these people. They’re part of the Burmese people group, which is the second-largest Buddhist unreached people group in the world. These folks were off the grid, so to speak. And because of these attacks by the government, it’s driven them to find some kind of refuge.”

Pray for an end to the bloodshed in Myanmar. Ask the Holy Spirit to comfort these refugees and give them hope.

The header photo shows members of the Kachin Independence Army, a militia group that operated in Myanmar well before the 2021 coup. (Photo courtesy of Paul Vrieze (VOA), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

What now?

Barbara Gerhart with Global Disciples (A champion member of the Alliance for the Unreached) talks about ways to get involved with this continuing work. “Step two, I think is on your knees praying for that third of us that are still waiting for the good news. Pray for a vision for a people group. Or it could be a religious group, or a region, or a nation. In some areas, an unreached people group might be a community of people that aren’t necessarily an ethnic group. So ask for the nations as God tells us to.”

You can also stay engaged with this work by supporting ministries like Global Disciples. Gerhart says, “As we look at reaching the least reached, we do it by working with national and local churches who are within reach of those who are still unreached. They know people from unreached people groups, they know communities, they themselves are believers who come out of groups that have very minimal understanding or influence for the Gospel.”

Reaching one-third of all people on Earth isn’t something anybody can do alone. Pray the Holy Spirit will use the whole body of Christ to accomplish this mission.

The header photo comes courtesy of the Alliance for the Unreached. 

Photo courtesy of the Alliance for the Unreached.

Wayne Pederson explains why some groups are harder to reach than others. “Some of the most difficult to reach [live in] countries where there’s persecution, where there’s government interference, where there are cultural obstacles to not only receiving Christ but even hearing about Christ.” Pederson mentions countries like China, Pakistan, and North Korea, where governments and cultural forces often work against the Gospel.

The Alliance wants to help the North American Church remember the Great Commission, which Jesus gave His disciples before he ascended. Ever since, the Church has been on a mission to share God’s love with everyone on Earth. Pederson says, “We chose Pentecost Sunday because that’s the day that the church was born. Peter addressed [the crowd] and 3,000 people came to Christ. Today we’re living in an age where with the technology we have, we see a Pentecost every hour. Every hour 3000 people are coming to know Christ. We have shortwave, we have satellite, we have digital technology, podcasts, and apps that we can use.”

Want to get involved? Click here for resources like prayer guides, ideas for churches and small groups, and a podcast.

Header photo courtesy of the Alliance for the Unreached. 

In a time where travel is relatively easy and information travels across borders without physical couriers, it’s staggering to think that so many remain out of reach of the Gospel. Andrew Scott with Operation Mobilization (OM) says usually it is because those people are the hardest to reach.

Reaching the Unreached: A Dangerous Task

There may be geographical or linguistic barriers, but often the more pressing barrier is physical danger. According to the Alliance for the Unreached 90% of unreached people live in Gospel-resistant groups.

In the last year alone almost 3000 Christians were killed for their faith. The number is staggering. Yet God’s Word continues to spread.

Scott says, “This is the history of the church, that when we go in as Jesus followers there will come persecution. So I believe that we, as the people of God, need to be ready for that. I think it’s going to involve higher levels of risk. And that’s challenging in a risk averse world, certainly in the Western world. But it’s part of the reality in many of these places where people are putting their lives on the line and taking high risks to share the Gospel.”

Not Just a Possibility but an Expectation

Christian workers hope to not only share the Gospel but care for people in new places. They may offer medical expertise, further education or other services. The goal for OM and other organizations is to care for the whole person, but that doesn’t mean when they share Jesus, they won’t face persecution.

(Image courtesy of OM)

In fact, Scott says it is the opposite. Christians should expect persecution.

“These folks, many of them, of course, deep down, they want to be safe, and they want to be well. They want to live, but what they’re praying for – and therefore I think we should stand with them and pray – is that their lives will be salt and light in these communities. And that through their life, regardless of what happens to them, that that Jesus will be lifted up, and that people will come to know Him through their life and through their testimony.”

Pray for and Support the Church

As you celebrate the birth of Christ today pray for persecuted missionaries and the persecuted Church. The Gospel cannot be stopped, but there are many who stand in its way.

Scott encourages the Church to pray for endurance for missionaries to the unreached. Pray that God would strengthen His people as they continue to be lights for Christ in the face of persecution.

“[Pray] that people in these regions will see something in their lives and hear something in their words that that show them an alternative way. That as hope-filled, joy-filled, peace-filled [people, Christians] point them to someone who is their Savior, who loves them.

“And that [witness] very often is most brilliantly reflected through the life and testimony of a Jesus follower, rather than through the words. So let’s pray for the witness of their life.”

Learn more about OM here.

Header image courtesy of OM.

“It’s almost like the early Church in the book of Acts,” says Abd Al Fadi about Christianity among certain language groups in Saudi Arabia.

He works with Hijazi Arabic in Western Saudi Arabia, Najdi Arabic in central Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi Gulf dialect in the East. Read more in our series about Unreached people Groups here. And remember to join us for the International Day for the Unreached on May 31.

Two challenges

An ancient manuscript written in Hijazi Arabic. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Abd Al Fadi outlines two main challenges to sharing the Gospel with these languages clusters. “You need to find the right people to do the translations. Otherwise, if you rely on people who are non-believers, or if you rely on people who are not from the region, you will have some terminological and theological issues you have to deal with. Of course, this could cause a problem.”

These groups have few Christians, and finding mature and committed believers to translate is even more difficult. Abd Al Fadi says, “Sometimes they’re busy with a job, or concerned about being caught by their family or the government.”

Even if the translators complete their work, that doesn’t mean it can be distributed easily. “It’s one thing to produce the product. It’s another to deliver it to the right church or group that can benefit from it.”

Successes

Abd Al Fadi says some successes in this ministry come directly, and some indirectly. He met one man in person, who leads a church for people in one of the language groups. “This person is definitely one of those that qualifies to be a leader. And that’s exciting. [I hope] he will get trained to become a leader and he himself will disciple others.”

Saudi Arabia forbids non-Muslims from entering the cities of Mecca and Medina, and considers all citizens Muslim. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

He also ministers through YouTube, through which he meets and interacts with many people. For the PrayerCast video about these languages in Saudi Arabia, click here.

“Those are success stories,” Abd Al Fadi says, “in terms of the fact that there are still people out there that can work with you. [They are] bold enough to do it. But just finding them usually is the challenge.”

How to pray

Abd Al Fadi asks Christians in the West to pray that Christians in Saudi Arabia will join together in house churches, and that the right materials will get to the right people. “Pray for these products that we’ll be working on, which [includes] translated stories from the Scripture, parables, psalms, prayers, things like that.”

Most of all, pray that like the early Church in Acts, the Church in Saudi Arabia would grow and multiply. Abd Al Fadi says he hopes within the next decade, “We will hear about many Saudi believers who are out in the open, doing media or doing ministry, and partnering with others as well.”

Sunset over the Rub’ al Khali in Saudi Arabia. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Nabil Bandak oversees the effort to reach both the North Levantine and South Levantine language clusters, as well as Mesopotamian Arabic. The South Levantine speakers mainly live in Jordan and Palestine, while North Levantine speakers live in the northern part of Jordan, as well as Syria and Lebanon. Mesopotamian Arabic speakers mainly live in Syria and the western part of Iraq. See the PrayerCast video for these people here.

Bandak also works with the Adyghe people, many of whom live in Turkey, Syria, and Jordan.

This is the second story in our series focusing on unreached people groups around the world. For the first story, click here.

Refugees fleeing the Syrian War. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons)

Challenges to reaching these people

Bandak says constant war provides the greatest challenge to reaching these groups. He says, “[The wars] in Syria and Iraq left the demographics of the region in [such] a state that you cannot determine who lives where.”

Bandak says with many countries in constant turmoil, these people groups move from one place to another with little documentation, and no warning. He uses the example of the Syrian Civil War. “When Turkey invaded Syria and took a strip of Syria, people moved. When people moved, we were at a loss, not able to track them, or where they were attending churches. Where did they go? They just fled. This is a major, major issue.”

But the Holy Spirit finds a way. One group of Adyghe people Bandak works with was said to have no believers, but upon investigation he discovered this wasn’t true. “Actually, there is a group that meets. They are around 40 people that are even preaching to others. They have a weekly meeting where they come together, sing together, and enjoy the Bible.”

Traditional Adyghe clothing.(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons)

“When you think God is not working in one group, you find that you are always wrong, and God has already visited those people groups in different ways.”

How to pray

Despite the wars and other challenges, the Holy Spirit continues to move. Bandak says, “God is moving, and God is revealing Himself. I have many stories where God has revealed Himself directly to people in those areas and among these people groups.”

Bandak says Christians should be encouraged by this news. He asks that we pray for the local churches in these countries, that they would reach many people in these language clusters.

Bandak says COVID-19 has disrupted the workings of the Church in the Middle East, but God will bring good out of it. He says, “He is awakening a huge giant that has been sleeping, which is the Church over there. People now are thinking outside the box about how they can reach the unreached.”

The Levantine Sea, after which the North and South Levantine languages are named. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons)

Global Disciples is challenging Christians across North America to stop separating the sacred and the secular and to go into our workplaces each day with a missional mindset. That’s why tomorrow, September 19th, is their 1Day giving campaign and Jerry Meadows with Global Disciples says you’re invited to join the movement!

1Day

Meadows explains, “We’re asking all of us to do that September 19th, to go to work that day specifically with the unreached in mind and even to give one day’s salary or one day’s income to reach the unreached people in the world.”

There are approximately 260 work days per year. The 1Day campaign with Global Disciples is a new way to frame how we think about missions giving — challenging us to go into our workplaces and for one day think, “I’m working for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom, and whatever I make today is going to support missions outreach to the unreached.”

Global Disciples empowers the Church in 46 countries to be disciple-makers and reach the unreached with the Gospel with discipleship-mission training, small business training, and leadership training. Many of the believers they work with are near populations of unreached people where they can have a ministry.

“Point-three-percent of missions giving in North America goes to reach the unreached. Think about that. I think in this one day, this effort, this 1Day campaign, I think we can change that statistic.”

Gopa’s Story

Global Disciples has hundreds of stories of how God is moving through evangelism ministry and disciple-maker training at their website. Meadows shares one story of a man in South Asia named Gopa.

(Photo courtesy of Global Disciples via Facebook)

“Gopa went through the disciple training at his church and then the small business training. With a small grant from Global Disciples he started a grocery store, but soon had this reputation not just of having good prices, but of praying for the sick. Because Gopa and his wife had this compassion for their customers and because of God’s power to heal, he was able to lead over 200 people to Jesus Christ!

“One day, a young man walks into his store and said he was from a nearby village but it took him hours to walk there. He said, ‘I didn’t come to buy anything. I came because I heard you would pray for me.’ So Gopa prays for this young man and then says, ‘You shouldn’t walk back alone.’

“So Gopa walks back with this young man who was healed of this physical injury to his village, and all his friends and family gather around and ask, ‘How is this that you were healed?’ Gopa has the opportunity to share with them the power of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, and eight of them received Christ that day.”

Get Involved With 1Day!

The idea of working for the sacred and the advance of the Gospel in everything we do doesn’t mean everyone must be a pastor. But it’s about honoring God with our work, which advances to our Christian witness with others, and even taking a portion of what we earn to give it back to God in worship and for the advance of His Kingdom.

“So for us to show up at work with the mentality that we represent Jesus Christ there, that should be every day. And we’re taking this one day, 1Day campaign, to highlight what we can do every day of the year.”

Click here to learn more about 1Day with Global Disciples and to get involved!

Meadows adds, “Then what we’d love for people to do is to multiply it. Share it on Facebook, share it with some friends, perhaps even take it back to your church leaders and think about involvement for next year!”

Prayer Support

There is still a lot of work to be done so that every person has the opportunity to hear the Gospel and decide if they want to follow Christ. There are around 500 people groups around the world still with no Christian presence, and 90 percent of unreached people live in an area that is resistant to the Gospel.

“Let’s pray that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers. Let’s pray for the Church in restricted areas as they live courageously their faith day after day, and let’s stand in solidarity with them — not just this one day, but every day — until that day where we can say every person on the planet has had the opportunity to choose and follow Jesus Christ.”

Click here to watch a video about the 1Day campaign with Global Disciples!

Jonathan Theissen says Scatter Global might have an answer.

In “Scatter: Go Therefore and Take Your Job With You” by Andrew Scott of Operation Mobilization, Thiessen says the book looks at “[Scott’s] personal journey in interacting with leaders around the Muslim world. These leaders were working in difficult situations and were saying, ‘Look, the world is changing.’” It was those same leaders who suggested that in the next 10 years, there won’t be any traditional missionaries left.

(Photo courtesy of Scatter Global)

But even if the workers are disappearing, the harvest is steadily growing. “There are still 2.8 billion unreached people in the world,” Theissen says. “Those are people who will live and die without ever hearing the Gospel.”

Furthermore, Theissen says recent studies show those numbers growing; 57,000 people are added to that 2.8 billion unreached every day.

“We need to engage the Body of Christ to actively reach out and fulfill the Great Commission,” Theissen says. That’s why Scatter Global is trying to convince the rest of the Body of Christ that they don’t have to be pastors to be in missions

“We believe that God is on the move and has been moving people into hard-to-reach areas (or as we call them, creative access areas) for many years. We want to see the 99 percent of the Church that traditionally our missions model has not engaged — from professionals and doctors to engineers, artists, and teachers — taking some of the incredible opportunities in the world today.”

Scatter Global is mobilizing those who haven’t traditionally seen themselves as missionaries and providing pathways for them to use their skills and positions to bring light into unreached workplaces.

Their work takes three forms: opportunities, resources, and connections.

(Photo courtesy of Scatter Global)

“In many emerging markets we see new opportunities opening up, so we want to connect people to actual job opportunities. So that’s one of the first things we offer at Scatterglobal.com,” Thiessen says. They’re particularly concerned with putting believers in parts of the world that are considered unreached so they can use their skills and their testimony to build relationships and spread the Gospel.

Next, Scatter Global will help people access quality training and skill development content already released by other organizations. Finally, “We want people to find others who are also on a similar journey, who maybe have been walking this road a bit longer, people they can connect to and learn from.”

At the end of the day, it’s all about changing perceptions about what it takes to do missions. “We want to combat the sacred-secular divide that says there are those who are here to do missions and those who go to church and live their lives,” Theissen says. In truth, everyone has a role to play, and Scatter Global wants to apply that to the Great Commission.

“In order to be a missionary you need to look like this, you need to have all this extra stuff, you need to jump through these hoops. Have we maybe got that wrong?”

(Photo courtesy of Scatter Global)

Sometimes it can feel like we’re putting the armor of Saul on David, forcing people into the mold of traditional missions without equipping them for real relationships in the position they’re already in. Instead, Scatter Global is equipping individuals and professionals with the armor of God and helping them find a role in the battlefield they’re already in.

You can join Scatter Global’s movement or find out how to pray right here.

A Country Without Scripture

(Photo courtesy of Christian Guthier via Flickr)

To paint the picture, Ethiopia, due to its geographical nature on the East Coast, is prone to natural disasters.  Also, Islamic nations and the threat of religious extremism or terrorists surround the country on three sides.

And because of its placement, Ethiopia receives a lot of refugees from its surrounding countries like Somalia and Sudan. For this reason, Ethiopia has become a type of melting pot — one with a lot of potential for the Gospel.

But Christians in Ethiopia have few resources to use themselves, let alone to use to share the Gospel; the biggest resource of all being the Bible.

Translating in Ethiopia

However, Wycliffe Associates is trying to change this and help provide Ethiopians with the Scripture in their native tongue by using its MAST (Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation) program.

“We’ve got 15 languages that have already come to us, [and] are ready to start their Bible translation. We’re in the process of raising funds so we can respond positively to bring them the support they need,” Wycliffe Associates’ Bruce Smith shares.

“And we’re ready to teach them the MAST methodology of translation that will help them get their translations going quickly and get them to [the] conclusion in a short period of time as well.”

The MAST program helps to drastically cut translation time for the Bible translation process. The methodology uses multiple native language translators who each work on roughly 35 verses every single day. Then, the community of translators works together to check the translation drafts.

MAST works so well because it’s using the talents of multiple translators at once, therefore cutting down a significant amount of the time that is normally needed to translate the Bible over a period of years. Learn more about the MAST program here!

Bible Translation Challenges

Although the MAST method cuts time and costs, there are still tangible resources needed to make a translation happen. Sadly, Ethiopian Christians have been blocked from translating the Bible because of poverty.

(Photo courtesy of Wycliffe Associates via Facebook)

Many Ethiopians are farmers, and with the on-going drought in East Africa, monetary gains have been little to none. However, the Global Church can help break through this roadblock.

“These workshops are averaging a cost of about $20,000 a piece, which sounds like a lot of money in a short period of time,” Smith explains.

“But when you compare it to the costs of sustaining translation over a period of 10-20 years [and] the translation [time] that is often required, it’s really quite economical. But we’re looking for funding specifically for these 15 workshops. Our short-term goal is to raise $300,000 in order to get all of these translation moving.”

Smith also shares that despite the challenges Ethiopian Christians are facing, they’re ready to sacrifice and invest what they have for the translation projects.

How to Help

So please, will you pray?

Pray for the Ethiopian church leaders’ and Christians’ encouragement, protection, and wisdom through the Bible translation process. Please also pray for the funding and support needed to make these translations a reality.

For example, even giving just $5 can go a long way in getting God’s Word into the language of His believers. To donate, click here!

(Photo courtesy of Global Disciples)

That’s something Global Disciples recently recognized at its annual global staff meeting, X-222, where nearly 100 leaders across the world met together to receive encouragement and strategize for the future.

“Here in Thailand actually, one time per year, we gather all of our international staff at an event we call X-222, or Experience 2 Timothy 2:2, where we gather all of our international staff really for a few different reasons,” says Josh Keefer with Global Disciples.

“One is to continue to just pour into their lives. We recognize they are all throughout the year pouring into the lives of these program directors who are running these discipleship schools, small business development, and leadership development as well as to continue to equip them and update them.”

Global Disciples serves to bring the Gospel to the least-reached people in the world. It works with the local church to train its selected leaders, helping them develop a sustainable way to train disciple-makers to plant churches and share the Gospel.

“One of the main pieces we do in the midst of all of the inpouring, the worship, the praise, [and] the fellowship is strategic planning for the upcoming year,” Keefer says. “We really see that as key for not just individual-by-individual, but really compiling all of those strategic plans for each region of the world and kind of saying, ‘God, what is it you want to do in the world today?’”

Training taking place on a Nepali mountaintop with Global Disciples. (Photo courtesy of Global Disciples)

Keefer asks that you pray for the ministry to be open to God’s plan and excited to see what God can do through the Church.

“It’s clear that His heart is for the nations, and many times our picture, or our imagination of what He could do is very small compared to what He wants to do and even what He wants us to pray toward,” Keefer says.

Click here for other ways to get involved with Global Disciples!