Source: Christian Aid Mission, April 20, 2017<\/p>\n
In an area of southern Mexico that for centuries has shielded itself from all foreign influence, including the Spanish conquest, a tribal villager who decided to follow Jesus quickly met with hostility from family and friends.<\/p>\n
The animist villagers in southern Oaxaca State reproached Reynaldo for abandoning the cosmology of his ancestors\u2014a worldview in which trees, rocks, and other elements of nature were imbued with volatile spirits.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many cases I didn\u2019t even know why I was doing the animist rituals, except \u2018to not anger the spirits,\u2019 and a life full of doing that never fulfilled me,\u201d he said before being baptized recently. \u201cNow I\u2019ve decided to follow the Lord whatever the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are people that have resisted Western influence for 500 years\u2014to reach them, it takes an average of seven to 10 years,\u201d said [Mariano, an indigenous missionary]. \u201cYou have to give your life to the work, and eventually you\u2019ll be accepted by the community, and they\u2019ll give you some land to work and a place in their society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oaxaca is said to be the most ethnically diverse entity in the world; in one 36-square mile area of the state, more than 200 languages and dialects are spoken. Half of the indigenous language-speaking people in Oaxaca do not speak Spanish.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb Readers, have you heard that another ministry that serves among tribal peoples has just changed its name? New Tribes Mission is now Ethnos360<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Christian Aid Mission, April 20, 2017 In an area of southern Mexico that for centuries has shielded itself from all foreign influence, including the Spanish conquest, a tribal villager who decided to follow Jesus quickly met with hostility from family and friends. The animist villagers in southern Oaxaca State reproached Reynaldo for abandoning the … Continue reading MEXICO: Reaching Tribal Villagers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7122,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7121\/revisions\/7122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}