Missions Catalyst

In this edition:

1. Understanding Frontier Unreached Peoples
2. Haiti: 17 Missionaries Kidnapped by Powerful Gang
3. Eritrea: 2 Elderly Pastors Imprisoned
4. Globally, Girls Exposed to “Shadow Pandemic” of Sexual Abuse
5. News Roundup: The Increase of Orphans Worldwide

Read or share the email edition or scroll down for individual articles.

Greetings!

Lately, I have been rethinking what the Church is and how God intends it to grow. I should have seen this long ago, but now I see the family motif as the best way to think about the Church. If the Church is a family, then might there be a better way to think about the unreached? As those with no church family?

This idea is not new; you may remember the Adopt-A-People movement. But what if we think of them as not adopted until they have a church family, or are “reached.” I doubt that missiologists will adopt (pun intended) new labels but my mind is made up. These unreached peoples or frontier peoples are simply orphaned peoples who need to learn of the Father that awaits their return.

My thinking started to change on this when I read Michael Heiser’s book, What Does God Want?

Whatever way you categorize the people of the earth, this interactive map at Joshua Project is amazing!  Read more about the Frontier Peoples model below.

Blessings,

Pat

Source: Joshua Project, 2021

Frontier people groups (FPGs) are unreached people groups with 0.1% or fewer Christians of any kind, and no evidence of a self-sustaining gospel movement. There are about 4,993 frontier people groups with a total population of 1,977,748,000. One-fourth of the world lives in FPGs and has almost no chance of hearing about Jesus from someone in their people group. About half the population of all FPGs live in just 33 groups, each with a population of ten million or more.

In frontier people groups, Christianity is often viewed as a competing foreign political and religious force that threatens to pull apart families and communities. Evangelism and church planting that encourage or expect individuals to leave their families reinforce these fears. FPGs are best reached through gospel movements that bring God’s blessing to heal and strengthen families and communities.

Read more about frontier people groups and access a large collection of related resources to help you understand and communicate these concepts. Be sure to check out the interactive map.

Looking for ways to inspire others for work among the unreached? Find some good tips in How to Tell a Dangerous Story (an article Missions Catalyst reader Heather Pubols wrote for Missio Nexus).

Source: International Christian Concern, October 18, 2021

Authorities in Haiti continue to search for a group of 17 Christians, including five children, who were kidnapped on October 16, 2021, while on assignment with Christian Aid Ministries.

The group of missionaries was returning home from building an orphanage and were abducted by the 400 Mawozo Gang in Ganthier, a community east of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. The gang controls the area and is well-known for extortion, abductions, and carjackings.

The Guardian writes that “one of the abducted Americans managed to send a message on WhatsApp calling for help as the kidnapping took place. ‘Please pray for us!! We are being held hostage, they kidnapped our driver. Pray pray pray. We don’t know where they are taking us.”

Read the full story.

More recent reports add that the missionaries were being held in a safe house right outside the suburb by the gang, which has demanded US$17 million for their release.

Some updates with prayer points appear on the Christian Aid Ministries website.

Source: The Christian Post, September 11, 2021

Two elderly pastors are being held in Eritrea’s maximum-security interrogation center as one of the world’s most repressive and closed countries continues to persecute Christians.

“Pastor Girmay Araya, 75, and Pastor Samuel Okbamichael, 74, were taken from their homes in the middle of the night and brought to an unknown location,” the news agency Church in Chains reported, according to the US-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern [though it later emerged that they were taken to the maximum-security Wengel Mermera Central Criminal Investigation interrogation center].

When arrested, Eritrea’s persecuted Christians often disappear without a trace, leaving their loved ones with no information on their whereabouts or safety. Prison conditions are some of the harshest in the world, with inmates kept in shipping containers and believers often tortured in an attempt to get them to renounce their faith.

Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki is a member of the Eritrean Orthodox Church in Asmara—belonging to the largest among the only three Christian denominations allowed to function in the country. Afewerki [also] has a reputation of being an alcoholic and a ruthless autocrat. Afewerki’s policy of restrictions is more about his fear that religion will mobilize people as a political force than religion itself.

Read the full story. Note: Evidently these arrests happened in late July but the men have yet to be released.

Church in Chains details other recent arrests in the country.

Source: ASSIST News Service, October 11, 2021

COVID-19 has triggered a “shadow pandemic” of sexual abuse, violence, and exploitation against girls, a shocking new report reveals on International Day of the Girl Child, October 11.

More than ever, girls face multiple threats to their safety, including sexual predators online, sex trafficking, and forced child marriage, says the report Young Victims Remain Hidden in the Pandemic’s Shadow by mission organization GFA World (also known as Gospel for Asia). International Day of the Girl Child is an annual awareness event.

In more than 130 countries—including the US—it’s legal for girls to marry under the age of 18. In North Carolina and Alaska, a girl can marry at 14 if she’s pregnant. In North Carolina, a 57-year-old man applied to marry a 17-year-old girl, the report says.

Worldwide, COVID-19 is accelerating a “global crisis for girls,” with surging joblessness and poverty putting pressure on struggling parents to marry off their daughters in their mid-teens or younger, the report says.

Globally, national lockdowns have disrupted schooling for millions of girls and left them exposed to exploitation and a greater risk of getting pregnant.

Read the full story.

Sources: Various

“COVID-19 and its many ripple effects have done great harm to families worldwide. This tragedy brings both an immense challenge and an immense opportunity. The local church in every nation has both the calling and the community capable of making a world of difference—restoring broken families, strengthening struggling families, and welcoming children into new families whenever needed.” – Jedd Medefind, Christian Alliance for Orphans

• Maybe you read the recent CDC report Children: The Hidden Pandemic 2021 or saw it cited in news stories.
• Maybe you saw the press release from earlier this month reporting that more than 140,000 US children (1 in 500) had lost a parent or caregiver to the pandemic by the end of June. The numbers have only gone up since then, both in the US and globally.

Several ministries we know are offering ways to learn more or respond.

• The Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) has a great blog and both conducts and curates research. CAFO invites us to participate in the 20th annual, international Orphan and Stand Sunday on November 7. Is this something you or your church would want to be part of?
• Crisis Care Training International is offering their course Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children online starting soon (October 24 to December 17). They also offer the downloadable curriculum materials.
• The Chalmers Center is offering a three-week online course called Helping Without Hurting in International Orphan Care (October 25 to November 9). Worth checking out.