South America

South America comprises 14 countries and territories, from vast Brazil to the small territories of the Falkland Islands and French Guiana, with the Andes mountain range running through its west and the Amazon rainforest at its center. It is a region with a strong identity, shaped by Spanish in most countries and Portuguese in Brazil, the largest.

The Christian faith arrived through Iberian colonization more than 500 years ago, and today the region has 18.9% evangelicals, with rapidly growing churches in countries such as Brazil, Chile and Colombia. Yet it is the Latin American subregion with the highest absolute number of unreached people groups.

Of the 655 peoples identified in South America, 236 are still considered unreached, many scattered across the Amazon, the Andes and the Chaco. Of the 612 languages spoken in the region, 435 still have no part of the Bible translated, an immense translation challenge in a territory of dense forests and isolated communities.

Pray for this vast region, where the church is already numerically strong but still needs to reach the peoples living on the continent’s margins, far from major cities and roads.