This continues a series that will focus on an unreached people group.  These are the bottom 40 Least-engaged Peoples, meaning that there is no ministry known to be going on within the group.  According to the population number, every 50,000 people is assigned a potential missionary, so, you can see how many missionaries are needed for each peoples.  Here is the fourth group:

Shaikh (Marathi) of India

Population:  2,335,683

Religion:  Islam

Missionaries Needed:  46

Adopted?:  Yes.

Language:  Marathi
Bible?:  Yes, completed.

Emerging

by Sarah ><>

October 29th, 2009

On the tip of my brain
Sits a poem only half-formed.

It has been on the verge of being written
But lacks a common thread or substance.
Inspiration...

The change of the seasons are a muse
As is Prokofiev, green tea, and daffodils.
When peering out into nature
To watch God's amazing workmanship
Words drip into the sky
And peek out from behind the trees.

These fleeting moments of clarity
Are so difficult to grasp,
But their memory leaves a taste in my mind
And can't help but make me thirst for the something greater.

Like the dark shadows shining down from the clouds
Between the bright rays of the sun.
Or the resonance of a string on my violin
With the tamborine atop the piano.

The sound rushes through the air and finds a kindred voice
And the two shake with joy at their meeting,
Lifting my heart with them
And laughter bursting forth.

Observing the absurd and giggling
Deeply until I must gasp for air.

God, the beautiful painter,
Who made the colors to complement each other.
He put red flowers on stalks of green;
Purple and yellow wildflowers
Scatter themselves and dance along the highway,

Crowned with caps of white.
Trees containing one hundred shades of orange, gold,
And vibrant, burning embers of scarlet
Against a vastness of blue
And a trunk of black.

Each leaf then holds a secret;
Each flower petal an answer,

And my eyes flit over them oft unaware
Of such a great mystery.
Oh, grant me the liberty to write such a verse
That would do justice to these trappings
Beating out of my heart.

A calling, a whisper,
A rampant longing for the glorious.

This will begin a series of informative blogs on the 40 Least-engaged Peoples according to Finishing the Task, an article published in Mission Frontiers in preparation for Tokyo 2010, a conference of mission leaders from around the world to discuss how to strategically evangelize the globe.  I will do my best to investigate and add information about each group throughout the week focusing on them.  I will list the population and the religion.  The missionaries needed is determined by the number 50,000 population blocks within each group.  A group is determined "adopted" if a mission agency took the name in 2000 at the Billy Graham conference on evangelization with the intent of starting a ministry among the LPG.  So, here is the first group:

Mahisyadas of India

Population:  11,964,538

Religion:  Hinduism

Missionaries Needed:  239

Adopted:  Yes

Language: Bengali

  The Mahisyadas of India live throughout the state of West Bengal and the surrounding areas. They are ethnic Bengalis. They are a land owning caste and their traditional occupation is agriculture. Their main crops are rice and millet. The vast majority of Mahisyadas are Hindu. Lakshmi, Dharmarah, Manasa, and Shiva are the most popularly worshipped deities of the Mahisyadas. They have a relatively high literacy rate.

Added 10/19:
  The Mahisyadas are considered a "Scheduled Caste" in India, meaning that they were at one time referred to as part of the Untouchables.  Another word for a person belonging to this group is "Dalit" which, in Sanskrit, means ground, suppressed, crushed, or broken to pieces.  An SC was traditionally a group that would be outcasted and regarded as ritually polluted, segregated from the mainstream society.  These groups are usually foreignors, even those who have been settled in India for generations, nomadic tribes, criminals and lawbreakers, and Christians.  Even though the caste system in India has been abolished, the social prejudice and customs still remain.  The government, under the constitution established in 1950, has made great leaps in the economic and educational discrimination against such groups, but there is still much to do.  Since the Mahisyadas speak and read Bengali (coming from Bangladesh, originally) as their heart language, it is a great blessing that the Bible has been translated into this language.  Much work has been done among the Bengali people, pray that it would also be done among the Mahisyadas.  They already understand the idea of being aliens in a foreign land - for them to understand that, as Christians, we are just residing here on Earth, it is not our permanent home, would align with their culture without difficulty.