Partner with
Local Missionaries in Paraguay

Population:

7.1 million

Evangelical population:

8.08%

People groups:

41

Unreached people groups:

8

Paraguay

Both cities and villages are inhabited overwhelmingly by people who practice a variety of Roman Catholicism that is little influenced by biblical tenets, and most people do not know the contents of the Bible. Of the 95.4 percent of the population that identifies as Christian, 85.1 percent are Roman Catholic.

Another 2.4 percent of the population practices tribal ethnic religions involving the worship of spirits, ancestors and gods related to objects in nature, and 1.5 percent of the country’s total people say they are not religious at all.

Thanks in large measure to locally based missionaries, biblical Christianity is growing at 3.1 percent annually. Native missionaries request assistance to obtain more Bibles for evangelistic outreaches and to disciple new believers. An indigenous ministry that trains gospel workers how to plant churches in remote areas and effectively teach the Word of God seeks assistance to cover the living expenses of local missionaries.

Poverty is high. An estimated 30 to 50 percent of the population is poor, and more than 41 percent of people in rural areas lack enough income to cover monthly expenses; in urban areas, that figure is more than 27 percent. Only 2.5 percent of the indigenous population has access to clean drinking water, and only 9.5 percent to electricity.

Most of the country is made up of ethnic groups related to the majority Guarani, who like other ethnicities in the country have a high rate of “mestizo,” mixed-race Spanish ancestry from the colonial period under Spain. Both Spanish and Guarani are official languages. In a country where Spanish is spoken by about 87 percent of the population, 90 percent of the population speaks Guarani. A little over half the population is bilingual.

Sources: Joshua Project, Wikipedia, Etnopedia
Paraguayan teenage girl baptized by Christian missionary in a concrete baptismal

How to Pray for Paraguay

  • Pray that largely illiterate people who have fallen prey to false teaching would be taught biblical faith in Christ.
  • Pray that people living in poverty will find hope and comfort in Christ, and that outreach to them would include means for economic well-being and health.
  • Pray that local missionaries working in remote areas would be encouraged and strengthened, and that new churches would glorify God.