Reaching the Unreached!

 

Hello Friends, A short google search about evangelism among unreached people groups will yield several different variations of the reality that  only 10% of mission effort is directed towards unreached people groups and only 0.1% of mission funding goes to reach these groups.  If you have been following my musings for any length of time you will know that I think that  most of the christian world has its priorities totally messed up.  If the money we spend on buildings was invested in the poor,  we could provide clean water, food and education for the portion of the world that lives on less than $2.00 per day.  We have the means and the resources but we spend them on ourselves and the tragedy is that much of the majority world is copying our foolishness and building their own monuments to themselves.

To send a westerner to most of the unreached people groups is a very expensive and time consuming exercise and in many cases a futile one.  Even if they are allowed to live in the area, even if they become fluent in the language, and even if they chose to actually live among the people, they will always be outsiders and looked upon with suspicion if not hostility.  Jesus may ask certain individuals to do this but the difficulty of doing so is why the vast majority of cross cultural missionaries go to places with comparatively easy access, that are English speaking and have a nice climate.  (A close friend just returned from a vacation destination African nation and was surprised by the number of western NGOs working there!)

The mountainous east of Tajikistan is one of the most unreached areas of the planet.  Bordered on the east by China, the south by Afghanistan,  the north by the  mountains of Kyrgyzstan and separated from Dushanbe by some of the roughest roads I have ever been on-  It truly is a tough place to get to.  It is also a tough place to live in being a cold, high altitude desert and a militarized zone due to  drug runners and Islamic militants.  But God has a plan!

Sergey, our team leader in Tajikistan came to Christ while in prison during the Tajik civil war.  Many died in prison during that time.  The brother who led him to Christ had become a follower after an apostle Paul kind of experience.  That brother never lived to come out of the prison but he led many to Christ and saw many dramatic healing miracles.   Once Sergey was released, he continued to serve the believers in several prisons.  Sometimes he could not go in due to the high bribes demanded by the guards but he maintains contact through cell phone.  

Some of the brothers in the prison are from remote villages in "unreached" areas of Tajikistan.  Who better to send to those regions?  They are from there, have family there, speak the language and have the testimony of a changed life through Jesus.  In several instances they have been the first Jesus follower in their area of the mountains.  Sergey seeks to visit them in their home villages to encourage them.  The picture below was taken in a home deep in the Pamir mountains (an extension of the Himalayas)  to which one of the brothers returned after his release from prison.  God has a plan to reach the unreached.

Your partnership in  prayer and finance helps us send Jesus with an Asian face into unreached areas of Central Asia.

Thank you!

Your brother Steve