“From Headhunters to Soul Hunters”

Janel Breitenstein

Author, Missionary, Speaker

  • International Missions (IM)
  • //
  • Missions
  • //
  • Send

One Ancient Tribe’s Journey as Warriors of One Kingdom…to Another

In their traditional celebrations, the “Tanghpa” tribal group[i] is the larger-than-life stuff of National Geographic: bold red-and-black loincloths, ornately beaded jewelry the size of the human hand, woven sarongs, javelin-like spears, choreographed dancing, glossy hair the color of ink. Rich in cultural heritage, they’re lovers of music and storytelling—two key methods of transferring ancient cultural knowledge—and hospitality.

Most of their elderly remember grandfathers only three generations past, decorating themselves for war, and endeavoring to lug home their enemies’ heads.

Their tribal lore includes the story of a chief’s dream that someday, a white man with an important message would arrive carrying a book. Though unfulfilled in the chief’s lifetime, the dream was passed down five generations. And in the 1800’s, the first missionary and his wife arrived to their lush South Asian hills, bringing modern education and the gospel of Jesus—who their tribe predated by millennia.

Though their national government restricted the missionary’s work to education, twelve of his students were baptized. This, alongside the age-old dream, catalyzed a movement in the entire tribe to follow Jesus. 

Today, as an agriculturist people group still battling poverty, the tribe is considered 98% Christian believers. Churches prominently tower in hundreds of mountain villages throughout their population of 200,000.

The ones dying around us

The Tanghpa have been sending missionaries for years—and recently, the Holy Spirit has been unmistakably moving. Leaders felt an increasing urge to shift the local body’s focus to their strategic geographic placement amidst hundreds of unreached villages within a single day’s drive.

Basic missiology—the study of missions—observes that “near” cultures can reach the unreached with the gospel more effectively and efficiently than “far” cultures. “Near” cultures hold similar language groups and cultural values, and a relatively short distance to travel. So someone, say, from Hungary might be more naturally equipped to reach someone from Latvia, as opposed to a missionary sent from Bhutan. A Malaysian believer may more easily reach an Indonesian than an American would.

And the Baptist association of the Tanghpa realized God had placed them with strategic purpose among five unreached, densely populated nations living and dying around them.

Some have declared that the spirit of the original missionary to their own people has been revived. As their saying goes, “We used to be headhunters, but now, in Christ, we are soul hunters.”

Mind-boggling Kingdom math

This urge crystallized during COVID, when leaders of their Baptist association put their heads together on how to reach out to UPGs. How could a formal, ongoing training equip the Tanghpa tribe to share the love and hope of Jesus Christ to those who—like their ancestors only two hundred years ago—have never heard His name?

The association’s leaders didn’t know where to start, aside from avid prayer. And of course, the internet.

A simple search led to an email instantaneously appearing in Orlando, Florida—on the laptop of Converge’s then-director of the Asia Impact Team. Converge’s team, too, began to pray.

Zoom calls led to on-site trips to Asia, on-site trainings with pastors and missionaries, and gatherings of denominational leaders to strategize. Ultimately, the Tanghpa’s Baptist association requested Converge’s partnership in the labor of bringing the gospel to so many people and places with no gospel presence. (The Asia Impact Team specifically helps shoulder coordination, systematic planning, and training.)

During a quadrennial conference, thousands of faithful Tanghpa—and many from Converge—witnessed as the two groups ratified their partnership on February 24, 2023.

Linking arms with Converge, the denomination has resolved to mobilize its people, train and assess new missionaries, develop current missionaries, and produce a mission strategy (in place of previous ad hoc measures). Even amid poverty, the Tanghpa’s denomination has now challenged its pastors to give a whopping ten percent of church income to missions. Converge’s project leader has sought perspectives from existing Tanghpa missionaries to the unreached, in order to better understand local dynamics. He hopes to triple missionary longevity from the average five years to fifteen years.

Through coaching, mentoring and training, with the help of the Converge Asia Impact Team, the Tanghpa church has raised up 107 missionaries, currently reaching 14 UPGs—groups that alone, both teams would have been quite underequipped to reach. They’re also sending missionaries, as businesspeople, into major cities around them teeming with those who’ve never known Jesus.

Yet again, God’s “Kingdom math” leverages more than the sum of its parts.

How can we help? How can we pray?

  • Over the next 15 years, the Tanghpa seek to saturate with churches a large island inhabited by unreached people. Pray they would recruit, fund, and train new missionaries to see this vision fulfilled.
  • Within the next two years, the denomination hopes to add 200 new missionaries—planting what they hope are hundreds of multiplying churches.
  • Want to learn more about what God is doing in Asia? 

    Helping the least reached people groups across Asia meet, know and follow Jesus.

[i] Name concealed for protection.

Janel Breitenstein, Author, Missionary, Speaker

Janel Breitenstein is a freelance writer and the author of Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids' Hearts (Harvest House). She and her family returned from five years in Uganda, and continue to serve the poor and the gospel through Engineering Ministries International.

Additional articles by Janel Breitenstein