Within the 10/40 Window, a swath of land located 10-40 degrees north of the equator and stretching from West Africa to East Asia, within which live 1.8 billion persons who have never heard of Jesus Christ, spiritual darkness hovers most heavily over Asia. Every day, more than 80,000 Asians die without knowing about the love of God shown in Jesus Christ. In India alone, an estimated 500,000 villages have never heard the gospel. As a direct result of this spiritual darkness, millions in India daily live in hunger and abject poverty while multitudes die with no hope or assurance of everlasting life. A hopeless situation? If we think only in traditional terms of sending missionaries from the West, probably so.
But here is where God’s wisdom shines most brightly! For within those Asian countries of India, Thailand, China, Korea and others live thousands of committed disciples of Jesus Christ who are eager to give their lives to evangelizing their own countrymen, even if that means being beaten, stoned or imprisoned by pagan opponents. This army of Christian workers has instant credibility since they are actually the neighbors of those whom they seek to reach. They do not need to learn a new language, to travel across the world or to support a scale of living measured by western affluence. Many live on about $30 per month.
More than 25 years ago, God impressed on the heart of Indian native K. P. Yohannan a vision for training and raising support for these dedicated “native missionaries.” That is now the single task of the nondenominational missions organization Gospel for Asia (GFA) based in Carrollton, Texas, which sends 100% of missionary-support donations directly to the field. Through GFA, 14,000 native missionaries already serve in ten Asian countries and plant over 10 new churches every day. Through GFA, some 83 Christian radio broadcasts take the message of Christ to a potential audience of more than one billion souls.