Along the side of a mud-packed mountain path, four East Asian believers sit under the shade of tall bamboo with a small, stooped woman in the traditional dress of her minority people group.
The sounds of a radio program ring out from an MP3 player stowed in one of their backpacks, and her eyes light up as she listens to Bible stories told in her mother tongue.
It is not common that a radio program would be broadcast in her language. Her Iron Pea people group speaks six dialects, each distinct and all incomprehensible to those who speak the national majority’s trade language.
The four believers are translators, working to interpret the book of Luke into the woman’s dialect. Once a month they travel into the community, testing what they have translated — while also witnessing to people.
Back in the city, a headphone-clad Li Chang sits at a large Apple computer watching audio levels bounce up and down on the screen. Luo Jie sits on a stool in the next room, carefully reading a passage from 1 Corinthians into a microphone. These small rooms have been transformed into a makeshift recording studio, complete with mattresses leaning against the walls as sound panels.
The ministry of Li Chang, an Iron Pea believer, is to record the radio program that played from that MP3 player in the mountains. Luo Jie is an Iron Pea believer who often provides voice recordings. Together with International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries, other national believers and Christian partners, they are recording Scripture and resources in the Iron Peas’ heart language, including oral Bible stories, original worship songs and testimonies. All this culminates in a new method of ministry called “Scripture planting.”
Scripture planting was developed by IMB missionaries in East Asia working to reach minority peoples like the Iron Peas with the Good News of Jesus. Scripture planting integrates the crafting of oral Bible stories with real-time church planting, evangelism and discipleship. This provides quicker development of resources, such as worship songs and recorded testimonies, as well as Bible translation.
At its core is the use of heart language, “the language in which identity, values, core beliefs and so forth — including religion — are typically learned, acquired [and] held,” said Grant Lovejoy, IMB’s director of orality strategies.
Both Jon Gerwig and Bradford Wotzke moved to East Asia with their families in 2004, becoming some of the first IMB missionaries to work with the Iron Peas in this city. The people group of more than 3 million had no known churches and only a handful of believers. The Iron Peas, who primarily worship the spirits of their ancestors, are considered an “unreached people group,” meaning less than 2 percent of them are evangelical Christians.
In the past, this country’s majority people group oppressed the Iron Peas, resulting in violent battles. Most retreated high in the mountains, where their poverty level is high and their education level is low, to eke out a secluded living as farmers. Tension still exists between the groups and many Iron Pea people, particularly women and children, do not speak the trade language.
“You’re just spinning your wheels if you’re not reaching the people in the language of their heart,” Gerwig said. “So you want to reach women, you want to reach children, you want to reach people in their moment of need in their heart — it has to be in their heart language.”
As Gerwig, Wotzke and other IMB missionaries began working with the Iron Peas in 2004, they planned to utilize Scripture resources — biblical stories and other materials that foster evangelism, discipleship and church planting — in their ministry.
However, not many Iron Pea language resources were available at the time, so they had to be developed. With the help of local believers one of the first resources they translated was the “Creation to Christ” story, a 10-minute chronological story that explains the gospel simply.
An important development came in 2005 when a Great Commission Christian partner completed the Iron Pea New Testament. The Old Testament translation has been underway since. The Bible is necessary to grow the church and believers, Wotzke emphasized, but getting the entire Bible into a heart language typically takes several decades.
“We can’t wait 40 years,” Wotzke said. “How many people die every day in that people group? How many people are dying over that number of years?”
Bo, an Iron Pea believer and translator, explained they once thought they must have the entire Bible translated before they could use it but now take a more practical approach.
“We considered our translation work like cooking for different sets of guests,” Bo said. “Some guests may be very busy and cannot wait for the entire meal. We must cook our dish (the translation work), finish each dish and let each group of guests come, eat and leave.”
The missionaries’ ministry goal is not just to see new Iron Pea believers or even new disciples — but to see new churches started.
“We know that no matter how well we adapt culturally to the lifestyle here, how well we understand their culture, we will always be an outsider,” Gerwig said. “And for there to be a movement, a massive movement of multiple churches being started, thousands upon thousands of Iron Peas coming to faith — it’s going to take that gospel message coming from an insider.”
But finding that first “insider” was difficult. For 16 months Gerwig and his team did not see any Iron Pea people come to faith.
During that time, however, more resources were being created to reach Iron Peas. In 2005 the missionaries developed the idea of a radio program and with the help of several Great Commission Christian organizations and national partners the radio show premiered in 2007.
To help build the program’s audience, missionaries, nationals and volunteers from the U.S. trekked through Iron Pea areas, handing out radios and teaching villagers how to tune into the radio broadcast each night. Their strategy now includes equipping volunteers and other non-Iron Pea speakers with MP3 players loaded with the Creation to Christ story.
“Anybody, whether you have any language or not, can walk into an Iron Pea village, turn the speaker set on. … And 10 minutes later, people have heard the story,” Gerwig said.
Finally in 2006, Gerwig saw the first believer among the people group, a man named Solomon.
Solomon became an outspoken witness in his community — by 2007 there were nine believers in his village. A few months later 80 from his village and 60 from another had put their faith in Jesus. In late 2007 the first church among the Iron Pea people was started.
Since the first church was established the gospel has spread throughout Iron Pea communities. Multiple “second generation” churches, which were started by Solomon’s church, and several third generation churches have been started. Today there are 28 churches and approximately 3,000 believers among the Iron Peas.
Now is a unique time in the Iron Pea people’s history, Gerwig said. “There are more Iron Pea believers seeking to reach the Iron Peas, and that’s something that’s never happened before.” Iron Pea believers are an integral part of developing Scripture resources, producing the radio program and strategizing ways to reach their own people.
Gerwig is thankful God has allowed him and his team to be a part of this and believes future missionaries to this people group will come from among the people group itself.
The team’s vision is that by 2020 each of the six Iron Pea dialect groups will have at least fourth generation churches among them.
Explore more about what it means to reach unreached people groups in East Asia at eastasianpeoples.imb.org. Go to imb.org/offering for resources to help promote the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in your church.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Names have been changed for security reasons. (BP)
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