The 2015 documentary “Most Dangerous Ways to School” features the arduous journey that Tarahumara children of Mexico’s Sierra Madre undertake to access basic education. Every Monday, small children as young as five or six years old struggle alone over slippery and rocky canyons to reach a boarding school.

As difficult as this journey sounds, many Tarahumara do not have the luxury of attending boarding schools as they must tend animals and plow their fields. In fact, fewer than 5% of Tarahumara adults are literate. Illiteracy greatly impacts a Tarahumara person’s ability to find employment, feed their families and read the Bible for themselves.

That’s why initiatives like the Sierra Send MP3 project have spread like wildfire in remote villages. The Tarahumara often wait by the side of the road, hoping to receive an MP3 player with scriptures and Christian songs recorded in their native language.

An elderly Tarahumara woman walks back to her small adobe house. (Photo credit: David Uttley)

Far from any paved roads, the people of Sikemochi live in extreme poverty, without electricity or running water. The families there were overjoyed to receive MP3 players donated through Sierra Send. Now, they could listen to God’s Word for themselves! As the news spread, the small church in Sikemochi began to grow. The community worked to expand the walls of the little adobe house where everyone gathered and added a much larger room to hold them all. Soon, they requested a literacy class so they could learn to read the Bible in their own language.

The need to teach people to read was obvious, but how could just a few missionaries consistently reach hundreds of villages every week for literacy classes?

In 2022, Sierra Send began creating 60 literacy videos, each an hour-long lesson that teach the Tarahumara to read and write, first in their own language, and then in Spanish. The videos do all of the teaching, so all that is needed is a local Tarahumara believer to host the class and operate the little battery-powered video projector. The lessons are designed to draw people to Jesus as they learn to read and write together, and include time for coffee, cookies, games and puzzles that we provide.

In Sikemochi, the excitement was palpable as Tarahumara men, women and children gathered in an adobe classroom for their first literacy lesson. Many of the students were learning to hold pencil for the first time in their lives!

We were seeing the same story playing out in small gatherings of new Tarahumara believers all over the Sierra. People are eager to learn to read the Bible for themselves! Most students will have never heard about Jesus, but by the end of the course they will have formed a sense of community with one another, potentially becoming the seeds of new village churches.

It takes a community- the body of Christ- working together to reach people who have never heard the Gospel. That’s the heart of Sierra Send- we aim to empower and equip the indigenous Tarahumara people to plant and lead their own churches, so that every Tarahumara family would know Jesus.

We are so grateful to those of you who have faithfully prayed and sacrificially given to fund MP3 players, emergency food supplies and support outreach teams. The Lord in His kindness has allowed Sierra Send to launch literacy classes in ten different villages, with twenty more villages requesting new classes in the coming months. The need is great as hundreds of small villages remain unreached. Would you consider partnering with Sierra Send to support these new literacy classes? Your giving will have a generational impact on Tarahumara people who will be hearing the Gospel message for the first time- and sharing it with their children and grandchildren!

How You Can Help

Sponsor a Tarahumara student:

Every gift of $30 per month sponsors one literacy student.
This donation includes all course materials, a video projector for the literacy lessons, fuel, vehicle maintenance and financial support for the Tarahumara outreach team, and compensation for the local class facilitator. Each literacy student also receives an MP3 player with scriptures and Christian songs recorded in the Tarahumara language that the student can share with their family and neighbors!

A gift of $300 per month sponsors an entire village of Tarahumara literacy students (about 10 students!) This monthly donation provides for all of the support materials listed above for each student.

Please pray with us as of the seeds of the Gospel are planted through literacy programs in remote Tarahumara villages. Pray for protection and endurance for the teams of believers hiking to these difficult places. Thank you for your support which plays a vital role in sharing the light of the Gospel in these dark, unreached communities.

May God bless you!
The team at Sierra Send