.jpeg)
Bryan: Meeting new people can be nerve-wracking. Your mind is all questions and no answers. Will they be kind? Will they like me? Will I like them? What if we have nothing in common? Now, imagine these new people don't look, sound, smell, or act like anyone you've ever seen before in your life. The first contact scenario with a previously uncontacted language group is one of the most dramatic and strange human encounters we can imagine. The stakes are tremendous. But when this first contact is made by a missionary, the stakes are even higher. The success or failure of this contact has eternal significance for the unreached. Though contact with completely isolated tribes is rarer today than it's ever been, these tribes do remain in small, highly remote pockets around the globe. Reaching them with the gospel is a monumental task that demands both spiritual and physical determination. This week we sent missionary Brooks Buser a question about first contact from our listener, Fiona. Fiona writes, "What is the most practical way that missionaries typically make first contact with an unreached people group?"
Brooks: So this is a really interesting question, because it's really showing, Fiona, that you're thinking through those last language groups, I would say. I realize you phrased it as people groups—but those last language groups that still have yet to hear about Jesus Christ, and some of those language groups are very uncontacted. They have had minimal contact with the outside world. Those groups do exist. Most of the research today says that they're either in the Congo, the Amazon, or the close area next to the border of Papua New Guinea and West Papua, which is the Indonesian side. Those are kind of your last three areas where you're getting into people groups that have had minimal contact with the outside world. And so practically, how do you bridge that gap for the first time? After the first time, everything tends to get better.
But I remember when we went on a survey—myself, another missionary, and then I had one of my tribal fathers. We were adopted into clans in Yembiyembi, and we went to this language group that was quite a ways away. We had to take an airplane and then a motor canoe for a little while, and then hiked a long time to get into their village. And I was not—and neither was the other missionary—the first outsiders they'd ever seen, but we were somewhere on the list. I mean, it wasn't more than ten. And just the reception that we got was incredible. Now, the departure was really painful because they were under the assumption we were coming to be their missionaries. But just everything that we did—from going to the outhouse, you had a crowd of people that would go with us, not inside the outhouse but to the outside and wait for us. And then when we bathed at night or in the afternoon, we would take a bar of soap down to the watering hole. And there was a crowd of about two to three hundred, just to see us do these really mundane things. They would stay with us all the way through the night and just watch how we ate. I've got hair on my arms and that tribe didn't have much of that, and they would rub my arms. It was really strange—strange knowing what I knew from San Diego, California. But living in that part of the world long enough, you realize there are groups that are uncontacted.
Probably what comes to people's minds mostly when they think about this is John Allen Chau and how he went to North Sentinelese, but that was very unsuccessful, obviously. And there are some reasons for that. I think we've discussed that on previous episodes. I think he had great intentions. I think his execution and his planning probably could have been done better. You've got the historic account of what happened to the five guys down in Ecuador, and those guys—the steps that I'm going to lay out that I think you should practically do for first contact with a people group—those guys followed it to a T. They had someone that was well known to the group make the first contact, a girl who was living out in town, and she went back and told them about them. And then they brought gifts. They would—if you remember the story—they had an airplane that would do tight circles and they would lower down machetes, and salt, and things like that. And they were well received on the beach when they first landed. And then things went sideways after that, if you've read the account.
But if I'm giving practical advice to missionaries—I've been on a handful of these survey trips where we went in, and I don't think I was ever the first outsider they'd ever seen, but again, was somewhere on the list—number one, I would recommend that you do your research. Do a lot of research before you get even into a position to make that first contact with them. Just anything that has been written about them, even from neighboring language groups. A brief introduction to neighboring language groups and how they do formal greetings, leave-takings, anything along those lines. Where the access points where they do touch up against the outside world, where they either trade or interact with other language groups? To know about those, I think that's really wise to research.
And then, like the guys down in Ecuador, small steps—do not rush into this. Small steps to where you're just making little bits of headway. And again, we're talking about uncontacted groups or groups with minimal contact with the outside world. How you approach them has got to be slower, just for the sake of the group, for one. And also that you're aware of the repercussions of you going in there—what you may bring. Obviously be well aware of what they have been vaccinated from and have not been vaccinated against. Most of them have not had any outside inoculations or anything along those lines. And I commend John Allen Chau—I think he did that well. He thought through that issue quite well.
Another one that we emphasized when we would go into a group is not to go too heavy and not to go too light. Too heavy means you go with a bunch of guys and you look like you're coming in and you're an aggressive, overbearing force—that sends the wrong signal. You definitely don't want to do that. And you also don't want to go too light. You shouldn't go in as a man with your wife and kids for the first contact. That's going way too light. You're exposing your family to things that could have a really quite bad outcome. So don't go too heavy and don't go too light.
And then I think this bears saying clearly—you need to drench this in prayer. When you're making contact with a language group, especially one that has never had access to the gospel in their history, that you know of, that's a heady thing that has all sorts of Great Commission overtones to it. I pray that you are thinking through that and you are praying well, your churches are praying well, everybody that you know that is a follower of Jesus Christ is thinking through the repercussions of this. Not just first contact, but what potentially could come from this—what it would be like to maybe see a church among that group someday. That surely goes through every Christian's mind.
I remember reading about Augustine and how he was running into groups that the Roman Empire had brought in who didn't speak Latin, didn't speak Greek, didn't speak any of the known languages. And through translators, he was hearing about groups that had never had access to the gospel, and it was just burdening his heart. And if that was happening to Augustine way back in the early days of the church, what of us now, 2,000 years or so removed from Christ's death, burial, and resurrection—and there are still these groups?
So I don't know what, Fiona, God has for you in your life. But I pray that you think through this well. Maybe you're one of those people that will get the first touch with some of these potential groups. And for anybody that has first access to them, I pray that they think long and hard about it, that they pray deeply, and most especially that they pray for the future of these groups and what God may do in establishing His church and the gospel among them.
Bryan: If you're curious about Brooks's experience planting a church among the Yembiyembi in Papua New Guinea, visit us at missionary.com and check out a copy of the photo book Chronicle of Yembi. It also comes with access to our film about missionary John G. Paton, whose mission to the cannibalistic tribes of Vanuatu has inspired missions to the unreached for more than a century. And don't forget to send us a question you'd like to hear answered on Ask Missionary. Make sure to subscribe to be notified when the next episode airs next week. I hope you'll join us. Thanks for listening to Ask Missionary.