About the Country

For centuries, China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. But in the 19th and 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats and foreign occupation. After W.W. II, communism took over. China covers an immense territory and has an extremely diverse climate, from tropical in the south to subarctic in the north. Its population is recorded as a staggering 1.3 billion as of July 2014. Our project will be located in the Yunnan province of southern China, bounded by Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.

About the People Group

The Western Nasu are a comparatively large ethnic group in western Yunnan and are in the process of assimilation to Han Chinese culture and language. There is still time to reach these nearly 300,000 polytheistic people. There were no known Christians, Scriptures or other Christian resources in the group as of 2010, and 94 percent of the people have never even heard the gospel. Indeed, few have ever even heard the name of Jesus Christ. Deities and ghosts are believed to control their lives, and they are steeped in shamanism, animism, and ancestor worship.

About the Need

We are seeking two families to go to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, to learn Chinese and then the target language of Western Nasu. From there, a plan would need to be formulated for moving into Western Nasu territory.