Is North America Running Out of Unreached People Groups?

- by Keith Carey

Putting together an issue on North America is both maddening and delightful. It's maddening because there are so few unreached people groups that we sometimes have to broaden the definitions more than I would like. But it is also delightful because there are so few unreached people groups, that the task is nearly complete in this part of the world!

Mexico and her two English-speaking neighbors to the north have different problems in reaching the remaining unreached people groups. In Mexico, there are 18 unreached people groups, according to the Joshua Project list. Of those, three are immigrant groups, and the remaining 15 are small subgroups of Mexico's Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Mixes, and Nahuats. Global Recordings Network is doing all it can to make sure these groups get a gospel message in their own dialect. Because there are subgroups of each of these people group clusters that already have believers, it should be possible to reach them in the next couple of years.

North of the Mexican border, there are very few unreached indigenous people group, according to the Joshua Project list. The United States has 21 unreached people groups and Canada has 16, almost all of which are immigrant groups. It will take a different approach to reach the immigrant communities in Anglo America than it does to reach indigenous peoples in Mexico.

Though there are many immigrant groups in the U.S. and Canada that have a Christian witness, many of them don't. Those living in their homeland are extremely difficult to reach. For example, when was the last time you heard of a breakthrough among Somalis in Somalia or Kenya? But they can be reached in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Though there are efforts to reach Kurds in Iraq, and there are now a few Kurdish congregations in that part of the world, the work can easily run afoul of the Muslim majority. Kurds in San Diego or Nashville don't have the same hurdle between them and a Christian witness. Likewise, Pushtuns from Afghanistan are difficult to reach in that land where strife is an everyday activity. But many of them have settled in Fremont, California, where Christians can reach them if they are willing to do so.

North America's South Asian Mission Field
In the early 1900s, Punjabi Sikhs began to seek their fortunes in Canada. At first, few women came. The men earned relatively good wages in the lumber industry of British Columbia. Instead of returning to India as they originally expected, their women began to arrive, and they raised families in this beautiful land. Several decades later, others went to California's fertile Central Valley to raise crops. Most of the latter are Jats, one of India's most accomplished agricultural groups. Jats learned the advanced agricultural techniques of the Green Revolution, and have put these techniques into practice in Canada and California, as well as the Punjab.

In 1965, American President Lyndon Johnson signed a new immigration law that prevented "national origins" from being a basis for allocating immigration quotas to various countries. For the first time, the U.S. could not give preferential treatment to European or Latin American immigrants. The only criteria was that the new immigrants had to be well-educated.

Since that time, India has been sending its best and brightest to the United States. For many years, the number of people trained in India's fine high tech schools far exceeded the number of jobs offered in the subcontinent. American companies offered them jobs.

Those with business skills have helped the United States by creating startup businesses. Some of the richest people in the world are Indian nationals whose efforts straddle both countries. Many Indian entrepreneurs are in the high tech field. A key group of Indian businessmen are from the western state of Gujarat. They are Patels, and many of them own motels. At this time, most are involved with small, cheaper franchises, but some are moving into the higher end market.

Why is the Indian Diaspora so significant in God's economy?
We know that there are excellent efforts in India to reach out for Christ. For the most part, however, these efforts are affecting only the lower castes, and the high caste groups remain unreached. North America is a magnet for the high caste people groups. The late Mahendra Singhal, a high caste Brahmin himself, pointed out that his people have a knack for mastering complicated mathematics. They are prominent among the computer software engineers who live in America. Though India Gospel Outreach is doing a fine job of reaching Sikhs for Christ in India, it is still difficult to get through to the prosperous Jats, the same people who are easy to reach in California. A Patel Christian believer is unheard of in both India and the United States, but in the latter, they have a chance to hear the gospel. There is an effort to reach the unreached Sindhi peoples, many of whom are prominent in businesses, but there is still no fellowship of Sindhis in North America.

The problem is that the laborers are very few. There are those who are mission-minded in both Canada and the U.S. The difficulty is finding those who will reach out to the most unreached peoples on the continent.

Prayer requests

• Pray that God will raise up workers to reach out to unreached Muslim groups:Saudi Arabs, Kurds, Somalis, Afghan Pushtuns.
• Pray that God will raise up His chosen servants to reach out to the most unreached of the South Asian Diaspora: Patels, Brahmins, Jats, Bangladeshis, and Sindhis.