The Badjao live on the sea. We don’t see them because we live on the land.
The Rat Tribe lives underground. We’re not going to see them either, unless we are ready to go spelunking.
I live in Birmingham, Alabama, population 1.5 million. But I don’t believe we have that many people. I only see a few thousand. My lifestyle and routine keeps me on the southeastern side of the city. My traffic patterns have been the same for almost three years. I shop at the same stores, frequent the same restaurants, and get gas as the same gas pumps. I hang out with the same people. Only a few thousand people live in Birmingham, with very little ethnic diversity.
Out of sight. Out of mind.
It is no wonder we don’t believe there are at least 360 unreached people groups in this country and at least 180 in Canada. It just can’t be true that the United States has the third largest number of unreached peoples in the world and Canada has the fifth largest number. And, there’s no way 3,000 people groups in the world really exist in an unengaged-unreached state.
I don’t see them. They don’t exist. We should remember we also used to say this about microscopic organisms.