Who we are
Until all Peoples worship Him!
We are a missionary organization that develops projects to empower native churches among unreached peoples. In Matthew 24:14 Jesus says that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a witness to all nations. The word "nations" in the original biblical text is ETNOS, which means peoples or ethnicities.
Today a third of the global population, about 3.23 billion people, distributed in more than 7400 peoples, have never been presented with the gospel proposal. The vast majority of these peoples are in places of difficult access, extreme poverty and religious persecution.
ETNOS exists to contribute to the expansion of the Kingdom of God where HE is not yet known.
Our story
ETNOS was born as a result of a family missionary ministry of the founders, Raphael and Paola Florenciano, who in 2013 decided to dedicate themselves fully to missions among the UPGs (Unreached People Groups). Their professional and academic experiences in the areas of International Relations, Foreign Trade, Marketing, Project Management and Organization of Civil Society Movements, contribute decisively to the construction of this objective and professional look, without losing the complete dependence on God's action, which is the essence of ETNOS.
After a two-year missionary training journey, in 2015 they arrived in Thailand for the start of a cross-cultural journey. Since then, they have been dedicated to understanding the reality of Southeast Asia, so that from a solid base, they could build alternatives for the strengthening of native churches in the region. Since 2015 they have been in this region of the world building ties, connections and projects with local churches in Myanmar, Thailand, Pakistan and Laos.
In early 2021, due to the growing demand for an infrastructure that would provide greater support for fieldwork, they decided to formalize this family missionary initiative, transforming it into a missionary organization, which was born from 8 years of hard study, work and construction of efficient tools for the empowerment of Christian communities in the midst of the UPGs.
This institutionalization process proposes a different missionary model, with an extremely participatory governance system, where all missionaries have a voice, based on a modern and little hierarchical structure, with intersectoral processes and procedures.
ETNOS' international headquarters are located in Thailand, in the city of Chiang Mai. A country that has a concentration of more than 70 UPGs. Furthermore, we are situated within the 10x40 Window , the geographic area of the world where the largest number of UPGs exist, which is also an area characterized by great social inequality, low quality of life and religious persecution. About two-thirds of the world's population lives within this window, where the predominant religions are Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Animisms.
Thus, ETNOS was born, from the effort of simple people and under the gentle guidance of the Holy Spirit. In many ways, this story is just the repetition of a pattern, where the Holy Spirit moves the lives and trajectories of simple individuals, whether fishermen from the Sea of Galilee or young people from Rio de Janeiro, towards the fulfillment of His Mission.