On a recent trip through northwest Namibia, many different people groups were noted. One of these was the Himba people of Namibia. The Himba are a small people group of about 50,000 in number. They are closely related to the Herero. They are a semi-nomadic people who live in a village structure but follow their herds of grazing cattle and goats. They have remained relatively isolated and still wear traditional attire, except for the few who have left their homelands to find work. They also have the traditional religious beliefs of their ancestors, including the holy fire which must be kept burning for the ancestors in each compound. Pray for the Himba people. Pray that they will come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. Pray that as they live in an isolated environment, that they can see the salvation that Jesus offers as a gift and not as a destruction to their way of life. Pray for the Himba of Namibia.
Hi,
I was interested in this information, and looked further to see if any unengaged peoples of Namibia were noted. I did see information about “unreached” but not “unengaged.” If readers would like to contribute any information about specific unengaged unreached people groups, particularly those above 100,000, I would appreciate it. Please send any comments to gric@imb.org.
You may refer to http://www.peoplegroups.org for a list of people groups–for Namibia and the rest of the world. A download is available at http://www.peoplegroups.org/downloads.aspx.
Also, please note that we consider an unreached people group as any people group that is less than 2% evangelical Christian. In addition and since we are looking into the unengaged peoples of Namibia in this case, we would see “unengaged” pertaining to any people group where church planting methodology is not yet underway.
Thanks for helping with keeping our information up to date for effective mobilization and church planting in this and other countries.
Jim Haney,
Director,
Global Research Department,
International Mission Board,
Richmond, VA
Some interesting thoughts that crossed my mind while reading this: 1) it would take only a small team to engage this group: one pioneer team raising up 50 local ministries that each reach 1,000 people; 2) there have been many successful models in the past using veterinary medicine to bless African nomadic peoples, and the IMB itself has some examples of this, as well as SIM and others; 3) people who are belong to a tribal faith to tend to be very responsive to a global faith when it is presented to them–much of the conversion going on in the world comes from people who hold to an ethnoreligionist faith going to Christianity or Islam. Now is the time to Google for the Himba of Namibia and get more information!