ZaZa People Group of Turkey – $3,750
People groups refer to groups of individuals, families and clans who share a common language and ethnic identity. Unengaged, unreached people groups (UUPG) have no coordinated evangelical Christian missionary presence among them. UUPGs have never heard the gospel, or they may have been exposed to the gospel in the distant past, but have been forgotten. World-wide thousands of people groups are not engaged with the gospel. For the IMB to complete this task—to have just one missionary assigned to every unreached people group—would require doubling the existing number of full-time personnel. The task seems overwhelming.
“We will eventually get there,” says IMB President Jerry Rankin, “but if the 42,000 churches and 16 million Southern Baptists all became involved, suddenly the task is doable.”
A new strategy that will assist in reaching the thousands of UUPGs is called “virtual missionaries,” where churches adopt a UUPG and do all they can to be the missionary they don’t have.
Turkey: Maybe the most “lost” place on the planet
With only 2,500 known believers in Jesus Christ out of a population of 72,000,000 people, it could certainly be argued that Turkey is the most spiritually lost place on the planet. That’s a ratio of 28,800 unbelievers for every Christian. In the US, it’s about 4 to 1. Even China, with a population of 1.4 billion people, has a ratio of approximately 12 to 1, since an estimated 110 million have converted to Christianity. So we have a long way to go to spread the gospel in Turkey.
That’s where Long Hollow comes in
In an effort to be a “virtual missionary” to a UUPG and to push back the darkness in Turkey, Long Hollow is adopting the Zaza people group in eastern Turkey. They have a population of about 3 million people and there are only a handful of known Christians. We are helping to begin an alliance with a few other churches who will work together to develop a strategy to reach these amazing people who are still living in spiritual darkness. Mission trips, prayer strategies and other opportunities will be available throughout the year. All Zaza funds from The Crazy Love Campaign will go toward the work of this new alliance.