In the last couple of posts, we looked at the massive need for Christian workers “way over there” in fact so large a region that we give an acronym MENACA to tens of millions of people and countries in three continents.

Ralph Moore made a stirring set of comments at the Foursquare Convention Tuesday night, that “For every 2 muslims that come to Europe, 3 Christians are coming…” and they are planting churches without resources very successfully, most of them from Africa, and “the white guys are figuring out that the black guys from Africa can do something with nothing and they are getting excited and the dark continent… it’s (no longer) Africa, it’s Europe…is starting to come to life…we have to be attuned to the harvest at all times.”

So “missions,” in this time of great immigration, political unrest, tension and fear is often right next door.

I want to introduce you to a resource that you may not have seen before, that my brother-in-law first showed me.

The Joshua Project (click here) has sought to find and enumerate the unreached people groups worldwide…but this is not just “over there.” It is right here next door.

For example: 700 Turks in San Salvador, our capital

In the United States which has 83 unreached people groups, just in the greater Los Angeles area there are these 12 unreached groups: Sinhalese, Israeli Jews, Gulf Arab, Jordanian Arab, Central Thai, Adamawa Fulani, Burmese, Lao, Thai Don (white Thai), Cambodian, Western Cham and Malay.

And these are just those who show up as a red dot, meaning unreached.  If you are like I am, you didn’t know they existed, and probably still don’t know much about them…

Where are they from?

Why did they come to L.A.?

What language do they speak?

…and then the Holy Spirit begins to work and the questions change…

Where can I find them?

How can I help them?

Could they come to my house for Christmas?

How can I help them find Jesus?