March 01, 1993 by Dick Eastman

Progress Reports on Unreached Peoples

Berbers--An astonishing movement among the Algerian Kabyles (5,000- 10,000 new believers) started in a town where Raymond Lull, the great Spanish missionary, was martyred centuries ago. Now there is scarcely a Kabyle village without a believer. In addition, supernatural visitations of Christ to Muslim religious leaders in North Africa have been confirmed. A number of them are now receiving instruction about Jesus from a Christian mission agency.

Arabs--There is evidence of a growing number of Arab Muslims coming to faith in Christ after the turmoil of the Gulf War.

Kurds--There is a rising tide of Christian outreach in Turkey and northern Iraq through the emergence of an effective network of Christian agencies.

Turkic peoples--The three thousand or so Turkish believers in Bulgaria represent a significant turning to Christ going on among this Muslim ethnic group. News has been received of the first twenty Karakalpak believers in Central Asia. There has also been a large increase in missionary involvement in the Central Asian republics, where the largest unreached people groups of the former Soviet Union live.

Siberian peoples--Missionaries have now been sent to the Uralic Evenki and Chukchi peoples (See Mar.-Apr. 92 MF pages 6-12).

Mongolia--Five churches now established in the Mongolian republic, formerly a communist-atheist stronghold.

South Asian peoples--There has been an astonishing harvest among many ethnic groups in Nepal with a total of 100,000 Christians now reported. In West Bengal, India, as a result of a growing prayer movement with 400 cells of believers praying regularly, new ministries have developed in 16 different people groups through the Reach Bengal Movement.

Albania--In 18 months, about 50 Christian groups have formed in this former bastion of atheism.

China--A growing concentration by Chinese house church Christians and others in unreached minorities has been encouraging. Peter Wagner reports an estimated 30,000 per day growth in the Christian community in this, the world's most populous nation.

Praying Through the Window

October of this year will be set aside for united prayer and fasting for the breaking down of spiritual strongholds in the countries of the 10/40 Window, the unevangelized belt stretching from northwest Africa through the Middle East and Central and South Asia. Millions of intercessors around the world will take part. If you would like to know more about prayer teams going to these nations for on-site intercession, or would like to get a list of vital resources to share with others who want to participate in this effort, please contact the Christian Information Network, 11025 Hwy 83, Colorado Springs, CO 80921-3623, USA; Phone: 719-522-1040. A number of excellent training videos and prayer guides are available on the subject of strategic level intercession. Be sure to write and ask for them, and share this information with your own network of Christian leaders.

Regional and National Coordinators Selected

Approximately 40 national coordinators have been confirmed, with 80- 90 still pending confirmation. Regional Coordinators for the Middle East, North Africa, the former Soviet Union, the Caribbean, and India (because of its diversity, more a region than a country) were appointed to expedite the identification of suitable national coordinators.

Committees have been formed or consultations held through national coordinators in Ethiopia, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uganda, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Sri Lanka.

Please join us in praying for the identification of suitable coordinators for the remaining countries for which there is still no one. It is imperative to find Christian leaders who are able to motivate and network others for the reaching of the unreached.

Research Information

Kaleb Jansen and the Adopt-A-People Clearinghouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado have launched an effort to prepare prayer profiles on specific peoples. The Clearinghouse has begun producing or gathering existing people profiles to be used by the international prayer movement. However, only about 600 profiles of the 6,000 needed have been completed. Volunteers to write profiles on the additional peoples on the list are urgently needed since prayer movements such as Women's Aglow, with almost 3,000 chapters around the world, are eager to use these profiles to "adopt" unreached peoples for ongoing, focused intercession. It is this kind of prayer that again and again in the history of missions has been used of God to bring spiritual breakthroughs among the unreached.

Please get in touch with the Adopt-A-People Clearinghouse, 721 N Tejon, Colorado Springs, CO 80901, USA; FAX: 719-636-2000; Phone: 719- 473-8800. The Clearinghouse can provide simple instructions and a template for the writing of a two to four page profile. The provision of such information to churches and prayer groups is the critical bottleneck we are now facing in the AD 2000 unreached peoples effort. Please pray with us for the raising up of willing writers.

These news briefs are excerpted from the March 1993 AD 2000 Unreached Peoples NEWS, an occasional communique of the AD 2000 Unreached Peoples Resource Network. Used by permission.

If you would like more information about the AD 2000 Unreached Peoples Network, or have some news to share, you may contact John Robb, AD 2000 and Beyond Unreached Peoples Coordinator at 121 E Huntington Dr, Monrovia, CA 91016-3400. Phone: 818-303-8811 or FAX: 818-301-7786.

God's Word and Literature Network Update

G.W.A.L.T. (God's Word and Literature Track,) is the newest international network of the AD2000 & Beyond Movement, formed in February of 1992. The network, directed by Lars Dunberg of the International Bible Society and Dick Eastman of Every Home for Christ, works to unite a broad coalition of networking churches, Bible societies, literature distribution and media agencies in a strategic plan to provide every person in a nation reasonable access to the Good News of God's Word, via repeatable Scriptures and biblically based evangelistic material that would be placed in every home or dwelling of a nation.

The network specifically seeks to facilitate all organizations that fit the above criteria in a unifying effort that employs a four-stage process including:

1. The translating of God's Word for all peoples.
2. The producing of God's Word and the Gospel message in printed or repeatable form for all peoples.
3. The distributing of these materials in a systematic, measurable manner to all peoples in every nation.
4. The initial nurturing of new believers by means of the printed or repeatable (i.e. cassettes) Scriptures, Scripture portions, and other Word-centered discipleship materials.

April 3 & 4, 1993, GWALT conducted its first consultation that was represented by over 20 organizations who unanimously agreed to target four countries in the next 24 months for a modeling strategy of what could happen in reaching an entire nation with the Gospel if multiple ministries with similar goals worked together. The countries agreed upon were Estonia, Albania, Burkina Faso and Nepal. Two countries were specifically chosen from the 10/40 Window because of the unique challenges they pose.