What does it take to get the Good News into every village of the world?

Rajesh, a native missionary in India, stops among a cluster of trees to wipe the sweat from his brow. He’s been walking for days through dense jungle to reach a tribal village that has yet to hear the gospel. According to his research, he’s got another six miles ahead of him…with no road to follow. Rajesh thinks he’ll be able to communicate with the village leaders once he arrives. After all, his family lives in this region and speaks a similar dialect. But with hundreds of tribal languages in existence, there’s no guarantee. And if the villagers belong to a radical Hindu sect, they may chase him out. Or worse.

Still, he trudges on – motivated by the hope of their salvation.

Vishwa Vani Network (VVN), an ICM partner in India, has been working for decades to reach India’s unreached villages. And there are many of them: 600,000 by some estimates. Vishwa Vani hopes to reach 100,000 of them by 2020. They train and deploy thousands of missionaries just like Rajesh – who will make the exhausting and, often, dangerous journey to evangelize these secluded villages.

And it’s working. Over the past 10 years, VVN has built more than 200 churches through ICM alone, plus training centers and Christian orphanages. VVN has done this through a systematic approach. First they survey a new region, evangelize through native missionaries, establish a mother church, then equip local believers with resources and encourage new church plants.

The result? They have reached villages so remote that even the Indian government didn’t know of their existence.

This is why ICM works with partners like VVN…because local evangelists are the only way to reach the world’s remaining tribes with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Indigenous ministries lower the barriers to getting the Good News into all the world…and ensure that ministers will always be present to guide new believers in their faith.

Please pray for our partners and the native missionaries who are giving their lives to reach these villages.