The Green Window

Rainforest Regions of the World Still Needing the Gospel

The movement of the 10/40 Window (a term coined by Luis Bush in the early 90's) first got the churches attention in the 80's. Ever since, there's been a great shift on mission movement across the world to reach the people groups in that area of the world that houses the most populated places, the most people living in poverty and the most difficult-access-to-the-gospel areas due to political and religious issues. The churchwas then challenged to embrace this "new window" to finish what Jesus said to the disciples: the GREAT COMMISSION - to go and make disciples of ALL THE NATIONS (Matthew 28:19-20)! Despite the astonishing rise of the southern hemisphere churches and the incredible advance of the Gospel in these areas by many missionary movements, more than 35 years have passed after the 10/40 Window challenge, and still the task of reaching the remaining ALL NATIONS referred to by Jesus is not even near completion. Why? Why are there still more than 3 to 6 thousand (depending on your source) unreached NATIONS in the world? It is hard to predict that we will in fact reach ALL THE NATIONS while the "visible" church is focused more and more on their internal affairs rather than focusing on completing and obeying Jesus' command. If we pay close attention to research by Christian organizations we will notice that many are focused on people groups of "large" population. But what about the tribal nations who live in the jungles? Where people groups are so small in number they do not make the list? In 2007, during a mission conference in Pará, Brazil, where it supposedly was focused on indigenous people groups in the Amazon, we discussed in length about the "10/40 window." The indigenous and non-indigenous people became very uncomfortable and somewhat indignant. One of the leaders from CONPLEI (National Council of Indigenous Pastors and Evangelical Leaders) expressed his frustration that the [Brazilian] church is focusing on the 10/40 Window more and is forgetting that in the Amazon, their own backyard, there are more than 220 tribal nations who have never heard the gospel of salvation. The following year, during the 6th quadrennial CONPLEI conference held at Itacoatiara, in the Amazon state of Brazil, I realized that the indigenous churches in South America are strong and growing but needed a clearer direction to what her purpose was within God's perfect will for her... So with CONPLEI, we began dreaming about a network that will unite all South American Amazonian countries to reach those in unreachable areas. In CONPLEI's 7th conference in 2012 in Chapada dos Guimaraes, Brazil, there was a time of launching the vision of the "green window." I was in charge of the task of developing this new paradigm.

What and Where is the Green Window?

So, what is the Green Window? The Green Window is the rainforest zone of the world. The world is divided into two hemispheres, north and south, by an imaginary geographical line at 0 degrees latitude we call the Equator. From there 23.5 Latitude North and 23.5 Latitude South between the Capricorn and Cancer is where the worlds tropical rainforests are. Rainforests are green areas. And in these green areas there are tribal people groups who live and die every day without hearing the gospel. There is an estimated 2200 ethnic groups living in the rainforest areas of the world. There are more than 167 countries and territories within this broad window. Considering only countries that have TRFs (Tropical Rain Forests) with tribal people groups in their territories, the number comes to roughly 35 (more research is needed). The list is from the countries that have the largest percentage of their land coverage by TRF; BRAZIL, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO, INDONESIA, PERU, COLOMBIA, BOLIVIA, ANGOLA, VENEZUELA, MEXICO, INDIA, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, MYANMAR, PAPUA NEW GUINEA, MOZAMBIQUE, ZAMBIA, CAMEROON, NICARAGUA, GUATEMALA, HONDURAS, PARAGUAY, MALAYSIA, REPUBLIC OF CONGO, GABON, GUYANA, FRENCH GUYANA, LAOS, MADAGASCAR, TANZANIA, THAILAND, PANAMA, ECUADOR, SURINAME, VIETNAM, ETHIOPIA, SUDAN, THE PHILIPPINES and others. In 2014, the "Green Window Ministries," a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization based in Dunnellon, Florida, was formed to raise awareness for the Green Window zone and carry forward Jesus' mandate to go to ALL THE NATIONS. The vision is "connecting the Body of Christ where the church is to BUILD the Body of Christ where the church is not."

NEXT STEPS

There is a great need to evaluate the information we have from countries and the existence of tribal groups that make the category of UUPG (Unreached and Unengaged People Groups) in the Green Window area. Also, there is an urgent need to assess the possibility of mission agencies sharing information on specific UUPG fields to elaborate a functional strategy to link the UUPG field to the church - the body of Christ. We need to update UUPG information data profile for search-friendly sites such as www.etnopedia.org. We need to partner more, home and abroad, with organizations/churches and individuals/missionaries such as ITEC, Global Empowerment, CONPLEI and RENEW. Green Window is working in close relationship with the ITEC projects to help the native churches to become sending missionary churches without creating dependency on people and finances from the outside world. Please contact us for more info about ongoing self-sustaining projects. A specific target for the next couple of years is to gather key leaders from the once UUPG that now have churches who are sending missionaries to other UUPGs within their own geographical areas. We have examples from the Amazon region and from the Philippines. If you need more information please contact Green Window Ministries at [email protected] or www.greenwindowministries.org.