Nearly 600 participants from across the country gathered in Stavanger on October 24-25 to learn about missions among unreached people groups. How we can best reach those who have not heard the gospel—about 43 percent of the world's population (3.57 billion).

This is a collaboration with 43 churches and organizations from across the country. The motto for this year's conference is: Prayer. This is the seventh time the Unreached Conference is being held: "With passion for those who have not yet heard."

Here I stand together with Jason Mandryk. He is the leader of the Christian organization "Operation World" and author of the well-known book of the same name.

Jason was born in Winnipeg, Canada, but has lived in England and Singapore. He now lives in South Korea, his wife's homeland. This mission strategist stays updated all the time on figures and understanding of what is happening among 7,623 unreached people groups in the world. "Unreached" refers to people groups where the number of believers makes up less than 2 percent of the population. That constitutes 43.1 percent (3.57 billion). Together with a team of around 30 staff members, figures from around the world are updated daily. Information about new people groups being reached pours in from contacts worldwide and can be found on the "Joshua Project" website.

Jason Mandryk can tell that India is the world's largest mission country. Here Jesus Heals Ministries has large projects underway. During the conference, participants were encouraged to find a people group or an ethnic group and pray over them. And perhaps even go there to start a mission work. We heard about some Christians who were led to an unreached people group in China. These went there and started a bakery. Through this work, they integrated with the people. Many were eventually saved. When these missionaries left, the new Christians continued the work. Jason and his team were then able to remove this group from the list of unreached people groups.

Svein-Magne