Daphne Rademaker with 'Serving You' with scenes from the movie 'Call To Harvest' produced by Gospel For Asia Mission, http://www.gfa.org/video-joseph. MinistryWatch.com's Take May 2004 By Dan Wray "Some Have Not the Knowledge of God" "2.7 billion people of our generation are still unreached with the Gospel. What answers are we prepared to give to the living God when He asks about the blood of these multitudes on our hands?" With this stark assessment, Gospel For Asia's (GfA) K. P. Yohannan makes personal a call to the harvest, an entreaty to traverse a bridge with the Gospel, from western preoccupation with transient pursuits to lost multitudes of Asians who are still unevangelized. GfA's mission, expressed on the ministry website, is "to reach the unreached of Asia with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and fulfill the Great Commission through recruiting, training, sending and assisting qualified laborers to win the lost and plant local churches in partnership with the body of Christ." GfA's principal efforts involve discipleship of native workers within the 10/40 Window to take the Gospel to their own people without language impediment or cultural distraction. In addition to the very obvious reasons, GfA expresses the estimated cost effectiveness of such a method by a factor of 40:1, a point not easily ignored in a day in which costs are rising and charitable contributions have reportedly dwindled. Making disciples GfA reports the establishment of 133 Bible schools throughout India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, with a collective enrollment of approximately 7,000 and 98 percent of graduates ministering in places where the Gospel is unknown heretofore. This places average individual enrollment in excess of 50 students per school, small by Western standards, yet admittedly too large to be considered merely home Bible studies. In addition, GfA estimates that collective church planting efforts result in an average of 12 New Testament fellowships being started daily. One wonders what western schools achieve a 98 percent graduation rate, and how many are able to accurately report this kind of success in church planting. GfA reports an astonishing 21,000 churches or mission stations inaugurated to date, using an indigenous model -- self governing, self supporting and self propagating -- in areas where no church had existed previously. 10/40 Window Emphasizing evangelism in the 10/40 Window -- a rectangular area extending from West Africa to East Asia, from 10 degrees north to 40 degrees north of the equator, home to the majority of the world's Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists -- GfA's Bible Society is sponsoring an effort to place a copy of the Bible with every family in this high density unevangelized region. In India alone, more than 300 million Dalits -- "untouchables" according to India's historic caste system -- are hungering for the hope embodied in the Gospel. GfA appeals to its support base for special funding to underwrite specific church building projects in areas of the 10/40 Window where land and building costs are prohibitive for the nationals. GfA's printing presses are producing nearly 50 million tracts, booklets and other items of Christian literature annually. Finally, GfA has developed a comprehensive schedule of radio programming to penetrate the airwaves of the 10/40 Window, reaching millions who would otherwise have little or no chance of ever hearing the Gospel. The observation of the Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry is an ongoing reality. The harvest has never been more plentiful than in the 10/40 Window today, where an estimated 80,000 die daily without knowledge of the Gospel. In India alone, GfA estimates there are 500,000 village settlements where the Gospel has never been preached. As in the days of Christ's ministry, laborers are still wanting. GfA in the marketplace It has always been GfA's practice to send 100 per cent of financial donations directly to the support of its missionaries -- presently reported to be 13,500 -- withholding nothing for administrative costs or overhead. Administrative and homeland staff is responsible to raise their own support with GfA providing training in the establishment of a support constituency. GfA sometimes hires salaried personnel in rare cases, presumably to attract qualified applicants for specialized skill positions.