Pray Ye Therefore…

“Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” Rev.14: 15 (KJV)

In the middle of the year 2000 while leading the CAPRO missionary team in Togo, West Africa, I led a group of my colleagues to explore the northern part of the country, and we came back with burdened hearts.

For some time our team had been praying for God’s leading for a new thrust among the remaining unreached peoples of Togo. During this time, one particular group had continually been impressed upon my heart – the Anufos. What we knew of the Anufos before we went on this trip was that they were a certified unreached people group found within the 10/40 window in the far north of Togo in the savannah region. We knew that the majority of the group were animist, and that in the more recent past the Muslim population had been growing due to increased Islamic missionary activity funded mainly from Kuwait.

There were some things we didn’t know however, and only found them out after we arrived.  Firstly, we discovered that over 80% of this people group had never had any opportunity to hear the gospel even once (that is 2000 years after the good news came to the world!)  In one of the remote villages we visited we asked a young man if they had anything like a church there and we were stunned to discover he had no idea of what a church was! In many other villages all they knew about the gospel was that it was something that had to do with a ‘fada’ (referring to a white Roman Catholic priest who had visited one or two of their major villages).

The second remarkable thing was, to see how ripe these people were for harvest. Everywhere we went, even in communities with some Moslem presence, we and our message were welcomed. In one village the chief gathered the villagers and asked us to preach to them. They shared with us that they had been planning just the day before to send one of them to go to look for the ‘fada’ and see if he could come and tell them about the way of God. So they said it must be God who had sent us to them. We shared about the deliverance and the love that is found in Jesus Christ, the One God sent us. They were full of joy at hearing of God’s love, and that day they prayed their first prayers in the name of Jesus.

They asked us to stay and teach them about Jesus. And within a few years of preaching the good news, many turned to the Lord and today there are more than 14 churches scattered around these villages.

Today all over the world, it is harvest time. These two realities we saw among the Anufos are still true for many unreached peoples in our generation. – There is a very large  number of unevangelised people and they are hungry for the truth. Have you been following the news of the mass protests in North Africa? I tell you there are deeper issues beyond socio-economic challenges involved. We need to sense the urgency involved in harvesting these people. I believe God wants us, as the church, to witness a mass movement to Christ provided we move fast. But if we delay we may lose this harvest to the fowls of the air.

What can you do? You can pray. Our prayers are mighty through God for enforcing God’s will among men. Pray that God will use all means to create open doors for the gospel. Pray that the Church will see and enter into these doors that God is opening up in our days. Pray and claim by faith the remaining unreached peoples for Christ. Ask God to send out labourers among them. Pray for a rapid and massive work to be done by God’s Spirit in their midst as the gospel is proclaimed. Pray for God’s anointing and protection for the missionaries  who willingly are hazarding their lives in these harsh, hot places in order to see God’s kingdom come there too. You can also give of your resources to make these outreaches possible. Finally, ask God if you should go either short-term or long-term to help with bringing in the harvest.