Determination and Perseverance

As I write this update, my heart is filled with thankfulness and joy that we share together as partners in the most important focus of the Church: introducing new people groups to Christ and all that He has provided for a relationship with God. Your partnership in this ministry is vital for the advancement of the gospel where it’s most needed. I love the analogy of the church as a body. God uses each of us uniquely equipped and positioned to accomplish His commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel, baptizing new believers and discipling them. We thank you for the part that you play in accomplishing this. I think of the various opportunities that we have presented in the past and the blessing you have been to help us accomplish those projects. You have made a difference in helping provide funds for training of local workers as church planters, for Bible translations, for a phone app for learning culture and language, and recently for helping us to develop new areas for ministry and to explore entry strategy for positioning workers. Thank you for the impact and partnership with us!

Pressing forward while praying and researching what needs to be done yet to reach the world with the gospel, it’s very evident that to accomplish this means moving into very different contexts than those in which we have historically engaged. It’s very evident today that God is moving the world rapidly to the culmination of the prophecies that He speaks about in His Word. Today, we are seeing intense tension and conflict on every continent. As a woman experiencing increasing cycles of pain before the birth of her dear child, we see the increase of pain on many fronts, indicative of Christ’s return.

The foundation of the Church has been the cross of Christ and His shed blood, the growth and expansion of the Church has been through martyrdom, the depth of the Church has been developed through suffering, the victory of the Church has been through obedience and faithfulness, and the life of the Church has been Christ’s life and the ministry and power of the Holy Spirit.

Examining the history of Ethnos360, it’s very evident that the foundation that Christ has laid for us is one of hardship and sacrifice. Loss of our first five missionaries, loss of life through forest fires, dorms burned down and loss of life and belongings, two plane crashes (the second which took the life of Paul Fleming, a founding member), and a number of missionaries taken hostage, ending in loss of life. I am challenged and pray that we will take courage to stay on that same foundation of bold faith and commitment and endure whatever hardship it takes to penetrate into the next areas where the gospel is desperately needed. This is a context that will take unflinching determination and perseverance in order to reach the unreached peoples living there.

Last month we were blessed to host a forum at the Ethnos360 Home Office where a number of us considered the people groups who have no engagement with the gospel. This would be viewed as a subcategory of unreached. The list included 1600 people groups within the 6000 unreached people groups (UPGs). Most of these are within the 10/40 window. This forum reaffirmed where we need to be trusting God to mobilize, partner, train and do whatever it takes to expand into these areas.

Our featured project this year has been an account where we can help leadership and teams of workers allocate into these areas. There are costs to travel, to bring potential partners together to discuss and learn how we can help them, to conduct training, to do surveys to determine where to place teams, and to develop legitimate relevant entrance strategies.

Currently these funds have been a huge blessing for South Asia as they explore the setting up of a water filtration company, a huge need there. This kind of company gives us practical connections within the same people groups we are seeking to reach. To date, we have finished the financial model and feasibility and about three weeks of the design work. The next step will be to do a 3D print and have our technicians test it and affirm that everything is working as planned. We have hired a CPA in South Asia to license the company and hope to start production in January 2024. It’s been exciting and encouraging to see God put the right people in our path to help us develop this and also to affirm that this will meet a great need. This is just one example of how this financial project is helping in the exploration of an access strategy.

Our target goal for the fund to help us position in these areas is $231,000.00. Currently we are at $163,434.00. We are at 71 percent of our goal! As we close out 2023, it’s our prayer that God will help us reach this goal by the end of the year. Thank you for your prayerful consideration.

Thank you for partnering with us. We are so blessed to team up together in endeavoring to extend our reach.

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Larry M Brown
CEO of Ethnos360