The wooden boat rocks gently as Wes and Sarah Evans* step onto the dock at the completion of their three-and-a-half hour journey down the river. They stretch their legs and glance at the mountain in front of them. One thousand steps up the mountain lies a remote village of ethnic minority people, their destination for today.
The river is the only way to get to the village. From their starting point, the closest major city, it has taken the couple 11 hours of travel by several different modes of transportation, but it is worth their time and effort to take the gospel to the people in this village who never have had a chance to hear it.
In the scorching sun, the couple climbs the mountain and enters the village. They are told here, as in almost every village they visit, that they are the first foreigners to ever enter it.
Walking along the antiquated streets, they encounter a friendly woman. The copper-skinned woman is an ordinary 30-something villager who takes on the roles of wife, mother of three, daughter, neighbor and friend. Dressed in western-style trousers and a T-shirt, she appears relaxed and hospitable, and invites the Evanses to her home for rest after their long climb on the hot day. She invites them to sit on the sofa, directly in front of the electric fan, and offers them a snack of fresh chilled cucumbers.
As is the case with most villagers, this woman lacks the ability to speak the national language clearly, yet it is the only language the three have in common. She uses the village dialect more often than not, making it difficult for the Evanses to understand her.
They try to carry on the conversation over the sound of the television program in which her children are immersed, when suddenly they are caught off-guard by a fish decal attached to the top of the TV screen. It is an Ichthys /ick-thiss/, the fish symbol of Greek origin used to identify Christians, with the letters J-E-S-U-S printed on it. The Evanses ask her if she knows what the fish symbol means and her where she got it. The woman doesn’t know.
They ask her if she has ever heard of Jesus. She has not, so they begin to tell her of the Most High God who created the world and sent His one and only Son, Jesus. The woman doesn’t understand. There is no word for God in her village’s dialect, and this is the first time she has heard His name. Her knowledge of spiritual things revolves around the worship of dead ancestors and lifeless idols.
Wes pulls an evangelistic DVD from his bag and gives it to the woman. The DVD is in the national language rather than in the dialect of her people group. The woman may not understand the movie, but her older school-age children, who study the national language at school, will be able to follow it and explain it to their mother.
The woman instructs her daughter to watch the movie immediately. While the children watch the beginning of the film that explains that God created heaven and earth, the couple continues talking to the woman.
No one in the family has heard this story before, and no one understands what they are hearing. The Evanses encourage the woman to keep the movie and watch it. They explain that someday they will return, and then she can ask questions about anything she does not understand. If all goes well, they will be back in about 10 weeks.
Hundreds of remote villages, some along the river, some not, are in their area. They never can make meaningful contacts in all of the villages themselves, although they try to make repeat visits to the places where people seem responsive to the gospel.
The remoteness of these ethnic minority people is one of the reasons they hope God will raise up Christian partners to adopt the villages along the river. If others will focus on the river area, the Evanses will be free to focus on unreached villages in other areas in the county.
The Evanses pray God will raise up Christians who will commit to pray for the people among this ethnic minority group. They also pray God will raise up workers—short-term and extended-stay servants—who can distribute evangelistic videos and share the gospel through translators, giving many the opportunity to hear the gospel for the first time.
“The task we face is overwhelming,” says Wes, “but nothing is impossible with God.”
Though the Evanses never found out how the woman came to own the Ichthys, its presence in her home encourages them. “No matter where we go, no matter how isolated, He always goes before us.”
For more information on this project, visit OneLifeMatters.org.
