Grace* shakes her head. Feathered earrings dance, framing her face with motion and color. She is a member of one of the indigenous tribes of South America and is talking about the future of her people.
There are outsiders who would keep them in something of a museum — as living history, she says — stuck in a time that has not been a reality for several generations. It’s not what she wants. Yet the identity of her people in the global community is not an easy issue. “A lot of our people don’t even know our [culture],” she says. “They say they do, but they hide behind it.”
She wants her people to move ahead — to “win.” She wants them to take advantage of all that is going on about them while retaining the best of their culture. That means having to change.
Grace and her tribe are among 3,400 unengaged, unreached peoples across the world. Nearly 400 are in South America. Isolated by language, culture, history and — in some cases, geography — they live mostly in small clusters of fewer than 3,000 people. Most will never have a missionary assigned to them. Yet the church is called to take the Gospel to all peoples.
Gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering allow IMB personnel to identify and understand these often forgotten people, offering Southern Baptist churches committed to embracing unengaged, unreached peoples a basis for beginning their work among them.
Pray that Grace’s people truly will “win” and have the opportunity to hear about their Savior.
Pray that your church will be one to embrace an unengaged, unreached people group that might not otherwise hear the Gospel.
Your Dollars at Work in UPG's: For $100, a worker can purchase a water filtration bottle needed when trekking through the jungles of South America to find the nearly 400 tribes that have never heard the Gospel. They also spend $30 on waterproof bags needed to keep their Bibles and other materials dry.
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