Global Frontier Missions - The Next Chapter

January, 2009

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The story of Global Frontier Missions is a story of God drawing people to His history-completing vision of making disciples of all nations. Captured by this vision, Grant and Jenn Haynes began mission work in Oaxaca, Mexico almost twelve years ago. When they heard of the physical and spiritual needs of the Mixtec region of western Oaxaca, they moved to the market town of Tlaxiaco in 2001 and founded Global Frontier Missions. Over the years, their contagious passion for seeing least-reached peoples reached with the gospel has drawn many staff, mission training students, interns, and mission trip participants to Oaxaca.

GFM has long had a vision to send out laborers into the harvest field, not only in Mexico, but among the thousands of tribal, Hindu, unreligious/Chinese, Muslim, and Buddhist groups throughout the world. Two thousand years after Jesus gave the Great Commission, 40% of the world‟s population still lives in ethnic groups without a self-sufficient, indigenous church capable of discipling the rest of the group. We at GFM believe this must not be.

In light of this, we are excited to announce what we believe to be the next chapter God wants to write in His GFM story.

Five and a half years ago, Grant and Jenn decided to do something about the tremendous need for more laborers who would make disciples in least-reached places. They pulled back from their church planting work in two Mixtec villages in order to start a training school for cross-cultural missionaries. They did this believing that the short-term sacrifice of their church planting work would ultimately pay off in many more church planters serving in Oaxaca and throughout the world. Praise God, that vision is becoming a reality!

The fruit of Grant and Jenn's efforts is a growing team in Oaxaca that is committed to seeing the work there carried on until foreign missionaries are no longer needed. A solid core is in place, and new members of this church planting team are continuing to be developed. Due to a change in strategy to which God led GFM a couple of years ago, we do not need a huge team of foreigners to complete the work in Oaxaca. Just as Grant and Jenn multiplied themselves, our church planters are committed to discipling key local believers who will continue to reproduce themselves and lead church planting efforts into the numerous unreached villages. We do not, therefore, need foreign missionaries until every village is reached. We only need them until a sustainable church planting movement is underway. Given the growing, committed team of church planters we now have, GFM’s need for laborers in Oaxaca is happily decreasing.

But what of over 2.5 billion people, living in more than 6,500 people groups worldwide, who have no one to lead them into a relationship with Jesus Christ? Where are the laborers who will bring them the life-giving gospel with which we were entrusted? Sadly, the least-reached people of Mexico are just a drop in the world‟s bucket of least-reached ethnic groups. While Mexico has 14 remaining least-reached people groups with a combined population of 101,000 among them, India has 2,190 least-reached people groups with a combined population of more than 1 billion. In fact, all of Central and South America combined have only 89 remaining least-reached people groups, with a total population of 445,000. Compare that to South Asia, which has 2,953 remaining least-reached people groups with a combined population of over 1.2 billion. Southern Mexico has a growing number of national and foreign laborers working to reach its least-reached peoples, but the Muslim world has only one missionary for every 330,000 people. GFM cares far too much about the needs of the entire world to tie up all our resources in Oaxaca any longer than necessary. Because Grant and Jenn‟s goal of reproducing themselves (and then some) in Oaxaca is being realized, it is time for GFM to shift its focus to the areas of the world still populated by masses of people who have never heard of Jesus. A year and a half ago, we articulated a vision to begin new works among each of the remaining THUMB peoples – Hindus, unreligious/Chinese, Muslims, and Buddhists. (Oaxaca is a work among tribal peoples.) Ninety-five percent of the world‟s THUMB peoples live in an area of the world called the 10/40 Window (a box enclosed from 10 degree N latitude to 40 degrees N latitude and extending from North Africa, through the Middle East, to Southeast Asia), yet only 25% of the world‟s long-term missionaries are going to these least-reached peoples. We hope to send teams to Thailand and northern India as soon as reasonably possible to begin church planting work, but we do not yet have the necessary workers.

We now believe God is showing us how to help fill this gap in laborers, though: GFM USA. Read more....

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