A World Bank study indicated that more than 250 million people today are immigrants. The number one destination for these immigrants is the United States. Among these millions are some of the world’s least-reached peoples—Kurds, Yemenis, Pushtuns, Somalis—who for centuries have been isolated from the gospel.
For the first time in history, they reside in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as Toronto, London, Amsterdam, Vancouver and other gateway cities.
God is doing a new thing! He has brought the ends of the earth to the doorstep of one of the world’s most Christian nations. How will Americans respond?
In 2001, a young missionary named Chris went to Mali, West Africa, to work in a remote village among the 160,000 Bambara-speaking Wassoulou people. The Muslim Wassoulou had no known Christians or churches. As he learned their language Chris found the Wassoulou to be surprisingly open.
The rigors of life in a Wassoulou village, however, soon took their toll as Chris became deathly ill and had to be medevacked from the country. The mission determined that he could not return to West Africa, but Chris did not give up.
On a survey trip to New York city in 2006, Chris and his wife discovered a Wassoulou community living in Harlem. A middle-aged Wassoulou man named Jamal told Chris,“I became a follower of Jesus Christ in Mali 22 years ago as a result of dreams about Isa al-Masih [Jesus the Messiah]. When I told my family they threatened to kill me. For several years I had to move from city to city to escape persecution, before finding my way to New York city.”
As a result of this conversation, a few months later Chris and his family moved into Harlem. Today there are more than 100 Wassoulou followers of Isa al-Masih. Through Jamal’s connections, doors have been opened to the gospel in his and other Wassoulou villages in Mali, which have contributed to the first Wassoulou churches in West Africa.
Find out more about missionaries who work to disciple the ends of the earth in other gateway cities at Global Gates (www.GlobalGates.info)
LET’S PRAY
- Pray that the millions of unreached immigrants leaving their homelands in search of a new life may find new life in
Christ there. - Pray that American Christians will respond with Christ’s love to the unreached millions that God is bringing to their shores.
- Pray for churches and ministries such as Global Gates that are crossing cultural barriers to engage these unreached people groups that God has brought to our cities.
Post credited to the editors at Worldchristian: visit http://www. worldchristianconcern.org/donate to support mission efforts to reach the unreached for Christ.
