Some of the members of a village of isolated people may speak enough of the national language to buy and sell in the market, but this is inadequate in communicating something on a much higher level: the gospel. Even sharing the gospel with another English speaker can be difficult and it is easy to miscommunicate. Clear communication is even more difficult when either person is not using their heart language.
It is one of these unreached people groups that my wife and I hope to be instrumental in reaching with the gospel. But we are only one couple. We can probably only work with one people group in our lifetime, because learning language and culture and planting a church in a cross-cultural setting takes many years. So many more church planters are needed. And each church planter needs the support structure of a mission organization, which requires more personnel to run it. All of these people probably need people to sponsor them and their ministry financially. So, as you can see, there is a great need for people to be involved in various capacities in order to reach those who do not yet understand the good news of Jesus Christ.
Sadly, many Christians are unaware of the plight of unreached people groups. This is why my wife and I take any opportunity to share with people about the unreached. Also, even though some Christians are aware of them, they may easily become wrapped up in their own busy life. People often tell us, "That's good for you," after we tell them about our ministry. But they say that they themselves are not 'called' into missions. I think this is unfortunate. I don't mean that everyone is supposed to go to a foreign country as a missionary. But we shouldn't use a 'call' as an excuse. What is a call? Maybe God intends the whole church to be involved in reaching the unreached. Not every person's role looks the same. But is it possible that some have missed 'God's call'? In some ways, the decision of what to do with our life is fairly simple, just like any other serving we might do in the church. We see a need and make ourselves available so God can use us to fill that need.
So the fact remains, there are still 2,500 people groups in need of the gospel. What are we, as the church, going to do about it?
the gospel in their own language. Pictured above is one family from such a tribe.