Imagine that you are a Bedouin. You’ve never heard the name of Jesus. You’re sitting in a tent with your whole tribe listening to a foreign man tell a story. The story begins with a man and a woman in a garden, and the loving God who created them. He tells about how they ate they forbidden fruit and were banned from the garden. He speaks about Jesus, God’s only son, who came to earth to save mankind. Then he tells how Jesus was crucified on the cross for your sins. An elderly woman beside you begins to cry.

For thirteen years, one OM team member has been visiting this nomadic people group. “God laid them on my heart,” he said. He lived with a Bedouin family in a village for two and a half years to study their dialect. He has visited tribes who have never heard the Gospel. Even today, the Bedouins are considered an unreached people group. They live pastoral lives, herding livestock and migrating seasonally to find grazing.

When sharing the Gospel, this friend of the Bedouin likes to start in the Old Testament. He begins with a story they can relate to, like David shepherding his flock. Then he goes back to Adam and Eve, and tells the story from creation to Christ. “The amazing thing is,” he says, “is when you tell the story of Jesus and how He died, they don’t know the end of the story.” So Tommy continues with the Good News. He tells about how Jesus was buried and how on the third day He rose again.

Those this unreached group has now been exposed to the Gospel, many challenges still exist, challenges of literacy and lifestyle. “How do you disciple someone who can’t read or how do you create a church among nomadic people?” their teacher asks. As Bedouins begin to settle in villages and to realize the importance of education, at least for males, these challenges become easier.

But the biggest challenge is the power of tribal loyalty. For the Bedouins, their identity comes from their tribe and their Islamic faith. For a member to break away would bring immense shame. One young Bedouin man desired to know Jesus, but was afraid. “I could never take that step,” he said. “I would be killed.”

It is difficult to accurately estimate the number of nomadic Bedouins in the area. What the field needs are workers who choose to live among Bedouins who have never been reached. As this long-term worker knows, “It’s a privilege to take the Gospel where it’s never been before.”