Unknown Nations Podcast

  This is the Unknown Nations podcast, where we'll be sharing about reaching the nation where Jesus is unknown. 

Welcome to the Unknown Nations podcast, highlighting what God is doing in the most spiritually dark places in the world. Hi guys. My name is Greg Kelly with Unknown Nations, where we have the honor to serve God by helping reach the most zero-access-barrier-ridden-spiritual-antagonistic-spoken-word-reliant people groups on the planet, giving birth to the church in impossible places.

And today we are going to be talking about how leadership multiplication is the only way to reach the Bengali people: the single largest unreached people group in the world. Well, that brings me to where I'm at because I'm actually in Bangladesh right now. Coming to you from the Southern part of the country.

We have had just an amazing trip as we've traveled all across this amazing land and guys, I have just seen some of the most incredible sites because when you're talking about a country, that's literally the size of about Iowa. Now to give it perspective, Iowa has about 3 million people in it. Bangladesh has  173 million people in it.

So, people are just insanely concentrated. And what they say is that DACA, the capital here of Bangladesh, is the single most highly concentrated country, uh, city in the world. And so it's just crazy how many people there are. You have these rickshaws just going in every different direction. Um, you have, uh, animals in the middle of this city kind of crossing the road.

There's dogs, there's cows, there's cats, there's goats, there's everything you could imagine in the middle of this city, um, chaos of, uh, and every nature. I tell people that DACA is pretty much all of your senses firing 100% at the same time. What you're hearing, what you're seeing, what you're smelling, what you're tasting is pretty overwhelming, um, just from a physical perspective, but just imagine the spiritual context of it, um, just really just adds to the insanity of it and the craziness of this place. And this is a country that just lost its prime minister not long ago. In fact, earlier in the year, the prime minister fled the country. Um, we're talking about just a few months ago in August.

That was the result of weeks and weeks of protests, that were in the streets, the people, largely a youth movement, uh, the youth of Bangladesh really pressed out this former prime minister because they were using this quota system where essentially more than half the government jobs were being reserved.

There's all kinds of civil unrest. Um. And elements of radical fundamentalism are at work here because again, this is one of the most populated Muslim countries in the world. It's a real challenge. I would say that the stability aspect hasn't really come back yet. Uh, they have a temporary government structure, but you can, you can kind of sense that there's just an underlying discomfort and uneasiness pretty much everywhere you go, but really the biggest priority for this amazing country is the spiritual need. Um, and remember that unknown nations, we focus on people groups, not, not per se, the country as a whole. And in this one country, uh, as I said, of 173 million people, you have about 300  unique, different people groups, including the Bengali, uh, which I had mentioned in the opening or the shake, and they are 135, 000, 006 percent Christian.

And so there's a massive need here, uh, to reach the Bengali people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Bengali people are a Sunni Muslim. Uh, which they share in common with Saudi Arabia and like Pakistan and Indonesia, for example, whereas, um, kind of the rival other majority Muslim group is called the Shia.

So, it's the Sunni, which again, are here in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and then the Shia, which are more from Iran and Iraq. So, they do not get along at all. That's why you hear, uh, a lot of, It's kept kind of conflict and fighting amongst Muslim groups. And what it essentially boils down to is the Sunnis against the Shias.

And so, uh, there's, there's a lot of dynamics going on here. Probably the biggest concern that people have is in the absence of leadership and a strong government that always creates a vacuum for people to step into. And a lot of times it's bad actors that just want power, want control. And the agenda of Islam in so many of these countries, and this area of the world is really to dominate and take over. And so when they don't have an aggressive fundamentalist, um, leader, then they will try to kind of forge a coalition, if you will. And that's what's happening right now. The fear is that some of these splinter Muslim groups are trying to organize, coming together, uh, and basically take over the country.

And so we're really praying for Bangladesh in that capacity and that that doesn't happen. The Christians are very concerned about it right now. I mean, Christianity is a huge minority, less than 1 percent of the entire country, uh, are considered Christian. And so they're already kind of persecuted. One of our leaders, just to give you an idea,  when he came to know Christ, his father hired someone to kill him.

That's right here in Bangladesh. And so Christianity is not, uh, received at all. It's not tolerated. Um, but we, we recognize that Jesus has called us. To bangladesh. Yes. He has called us here. But here's the crazy thing, long before we started working here other organizations. The bible's been translated for um, just over 50 years they've had the Bangla and Bengali Bible, but one of the great pioneers of missions, in fact, the father of modern day missions, William Carey has history here.

He spent time here in the early 1800s and translated a number of languages for the Bengali people. Unknown Nations is partnering with some of the churches that actually have their direct roots from William Carey. So that is very exciting to us because we know the strategy to reach Bangladesh is through leaders.

And so we are going to be establishing a training center here that is going to do exactly that. It is the Second Timothy 2:2 model. It's the things you've heard me share. And the presence of many witnesses, share with faithful men and women who will share with others. That is Paul's strategy of how we will make disciples of all nations.

And particularly when you're talking about a country like Bangladesh. So we encourage you just be praying for us. God's moving in power. We're seeing a collaboration that would really um,  just amaze most people because it's gathering together the Lutherans, the assemblies of God and the Baptists, all coordinating and collaborating together, uh, in the, in a heartbeat of John 17 where Jesus prayed we would be one so the world would know the Father sent the Son.

So, God's doing some amazing things in here in Bangladesh, and we just want to encourage you and bring you, uh, into awareness so that you can be praying for us and kind of get connected with us. Um, we, we appreciate you so much. There's no way we can do this by ourselves. And if you'd like to learn more about what we're doing, just go to unknownnations.com and you can learn and get updates on some of the projects like this one here going on in Bangladesh. Subscribe to this podcast, follow it and join us, um, on this journey, like I said, we cannot do it alone It's going to take all of us, all of us together, arm and arm in this journey of faith, hope and transformation. And then finally, you can get on our mailing list, which will give you a weekly prayer update from a nation like the Bengali people so that you can be praying for these people groups on a regular basis. Uh, that wraps up this episode of the unknown nations podcast. Again, my name is Greg Kelly, so thankful for you taking time out to listen. Hopefully this was a blessing to you. Share it with your friends and family, and we'll catch you next  time.