2025 Field Guide: Sunda
From Darkness to Discipleship in Sunda
For more than three decades, workers have lived among the Sunda in East Asia. By teaching them agricultural skills and faithfully sharing the hope of Christ with them, these workers are seeing the community transformed from darkness into discipleship.
Sunda
Update from the field
In the land they call “Sunda,” where emerald rice paddies fold into the mountain’s edge and traditions run as deep as the roots of the banyan tree, a new hope has arrived.
The Sunda are Indonesia’s largest unreached people group. Millions of souls—faithful, community-loving, dignified—have never attended a Sunda-led church nor heard the name of Jesus from the lips of a friend. Due to faithful, ongoing work of over 34 years, a new hope with eternal truth is making its way among these people.
Transformation has begun in the hearts of the Sunda.
Ryan was once caught in darkness and is now full of light. His transformation led his once-hostile mother to the waters of baptism.
Rev, a believer from a Muslim background, is now rallying a prayerful force of nearly 25 local non-Sundanese believers, determined to proclaim Christ boldly and faithfully among the Sunda.
The first-ever local field worker has moved into “Planting of the Lord” County, population 600,000. They are one family, sent by Indonesians, supported by Americans, and welcomed by Muslims. Now, they’re launching a small business to allow them to live faithfully among these people and share the gospel, proof of how an unchanging God is weaving together a global network to reach one of the most difficult places on earth.
The agriculture training center here is teaching young farmers sustainable practices while pointing them to life in Christ. One believer has begun training others in a contextualized biblical worldview called Salam Life, quietly sowing seeds in hearts that have never heard these truths before.
Chaya plants, once unknown in this region, are now planted by mothers desperate to nourish their children. The leaves, when cooked, provide even more significant nutrition than spinach, meeting an enormous need and helping the Sunda community thrive. This agricultural access ministry, initiated by the missionary team, has opened doors leading to government acceptance and celebration of this important work.
Alongside the agricultural success, a digital outreach team is growing too. Originally a team of three, nine workers now engage global consultants and use newly donated laptops to disciple online seekers. They field thousands of responses per year, and this quarter, three more people professed new faith in Christ.
The work is costly and tiring. Running a business and discipling a nation can feel like two overwhelming jobs. Bureaucracy can hinder growth and progress, and spiritual fatigue tempts these workers to relent.
Still, their vision remains, emboldened and sanctified: A multiplying house church in every one of the 131 districts of the H-region’s seven counties by the year 2033.
Day by day, field by field, county by county, the workers persevere in this mission. They draw maps to track their progress, and they faithfully meet to pray each month for all seven of their local counties. Through cultivated soil and a digital frontier alike, God continues his work of renewal among the Sunda people.
Prayer requests
- Pray for stamina and spiritual intimacy for the team as they lead business, media, and field efforts.
- Pray for the formation of a legal structure to protect and legitimize the emerging house church network.
- Pray for the young farmer apprentices, especially the first believers among them, to multiply both crops and faith.
- Ask God to bless the Chaya promotion effort as a low-barrier, gospel-bearing tool for new community access.
- Praise God for Rev’s expanding outreach group, and pray for fourth-generation Sunda believers to rise
- Lift up the local field worker family in “Planting of the Lord” County—that they would be fruitful and protected.
