India (MNN) — If we don’t take the Gospel, who will? 3 billion people today have no way to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. This Sunday is the International Day for the Unreached, and we’re praying for more Christians to take the Gospel to unreached people.

You never know what kind of spiritual legacy reaching just one people group can have.

John Pudaite, President of Bibles For The World, says his grandfather’s unreached Hmar tribe in northeast India had a reputation as fearsome headhunters.

“This would be back at the turn of the 20th century. [They] had a reputation of being one of the most savage groups of headhunters in the British Empire. We had developed this reputation because as the British had advanced across India converting a lot of the land into tea plantations, our tribe had revolted against this.

“In one attack on a tea garden, they had chopped off the heads of over 500 tea garden workers in one night, as well as kidnapping the daughter of the tea garden manager.”

Pudaite says, “We see it now, in retrospect, as divine providence that this reputation spread back all the way to the UK, because it resulted in a number of missionaries hearing the call of God to come to India and to reach out to the savage group of headhunters and the neighboring tribes.”

One young missionary, Watkin Roberts, mailed the Gospel of John to the Hmar tribe in 1910, and the village chief invited him to explain it. Roberts defied British authorities’ no-contact ban with the dangerous tribe and he went.

Rochunga Pudaite and his wife, Lalrimawii. (Photo courtesy of Bibles For The World)

Pudaite says, “He snuck up through the hills and walked more than a week on foot to reach my grandfather’s village. In a short visit there, just five days, he was able to share the Gospel message…. My grandfather who was only probably 14 or 15 years old at the time – he was probably a young headhunter in training – he gave his heart to Christ!”

Pudaite’s father, Rochunga “Ro” Pudaite, eventually founded Bibles For The World — a ministry that has provided 100 million Bibles to people around the world, including the unreached.

This IDU Sunday, pray for unreached people groups to know Jesus!

Maybe, like Roberts, God is calling you to go?

“It was not an easy decision for him,” Pudaite says. “But [Roberts chose] to follow in obedience to that calling to bring the Gospel to our people.”

You can read the full story of Bibles For The World’s history here.

 

Header a representative photo of a remote village in India. (Photo courtesy of Deepak Srinivasan/Unsplash)