Access to good information is vital to succeeding in any cross-cultural missionary ministry. This is certainly the case in the Amazon Basin where understanding the geographic, cultural and political constraints is just the start to forming a successful ministry strategy. We help missionaries, many of whom are tribal, by serving alongside them, helping them succeed in their unique ministries by equipping them with the ability to gather information on the go, observing and asking key questions, then sharing their findings across a network of missionary organizations and churches. This network is known as the Amazon and Lowland Tribal Empowerment Coalition or simply ‘ALTECO’. It exists to connect, equip and mobilize tribal ministry leaders to fulfill the Great Commission across a vast, challenging corner of the globe.
Encompassing this region are:
- 11 countries;
- 500-700 tribes;
- 200+ tribes unreached by the Gospel;
- 60+ totally isolated tribes
Spanning an area larger than the continental United States, the Amazon Basin and its lowland periphery contains half of the world’s remaining tropical forests and one tenth of the world’s animal and plant species. It is also home to between 500 to 700 unique tribal people groups. Some of these tribes are relatively large in population, residing in well-established traditional lands; many others are small bands of nomadic to semi-nomadic groups scattered across some of the most remote and inaccessible corners of the earth. Even today, many of these people groups remain in complete isolation from the outside world, as over 200-300 Amazon tribes have yet to hear the gospel message of Jesus Christ.
The lack of information currently available to Christian ministries serving in the Amazon Basin is astounding. Even after well over a century of Evangelical Christian missionary work in this region, basic data about tribal divisions, languages and locations, presence of the gospel and strength of tribal churches are often questionable or unknown.
As the South America Research Coordinators for ALTECO, our objective is to equip the laborers – tribal Christians, national ministries and foreign missionaries – to be well informed for the purpose of fulfilling the Great Commission. To God be the Glory!