---
title: Would the Ancestors Join Our Mission Team?
description: In Asia, honoring the ancestors keeps many from Jesus. But if the ancestors could speak, they would plead with their families to believe the gospel.
---

[Real stories of the gospel reaching the unreached.](https://withinreachglobal.org/field-stories)

# [Would the Ancestors Join Our Mission Team?](https://withinreachglobal.org/field-stories/the-ancestors)

 Written by [Within Reach Global](https://withinreachglobal.org/field-stories/author/within-reach-global) | Nov 4, 2026, 1:11:25 PM

It only takes a couple of days in Southeast Asia to realize how important the ancestors are to families and to the culture.

Most people believe that the dead continue living in the "afterlife" and need their relatives to send things to make that afterlife better. People go to immense effort to keep the graves clean, to "send" fruit, money, tea and other useful things to the afterlife, to seek the ancestors for wisdom, and to do whatever they can to please and take care of them.

Families believe that if they do not honor the ancestors, the ancestors will bring misfortune on their lives. But if they fulfill their duties to them, blessings will follow the family. Almost everywhere in Asia, you can see people bowing daily before ancestral shrines and burning incense, worshiping and honoring them.

One thing we have heard many times from Chinese students is that they don't want to believe in Jesus because it would not honor their family and ancestors.

The truth is, they are right about one thing! People *do* continue to live after life on earth, either with God or forever separated from Him. The awful reality, which many choose not to accept and which breaks the hearts of those who believe, is that their ancestors are forever separated from God, and there is *nothing* they can do for them on earth to change their eternal destiny now.

One of my Chinese friends joyfully accepted Jesus as her Savior, but a few days later she came to my house with a question: "What about my family members who have died?" I winced and painfully answered, "I think you know the truth about them." Through many tears she agreed, saying it wasn't fair that they never got to hear the gospel. But a new desperation began to grow in her to tell her whole village about Jesus Christ.

Recently, as I was reflecting on this whole cultural belief system, it hit me what the ancestors would say if they really *could* come back to their families to give wisdom.

The ancestors would most likely join our team as missionaries! They would plead with their families to believe in the name of Jesus Christ. They would want them to know the truth of abundant and eternal life.

In Luke 16:19–31, Jesus tells of a man who died and went to Hades. In his misery, he begged for a drop of cool water to touch his tongue, and for someone to go back from the dead and warn his family to repent.

If the ancestors could speak, they would praise our friends who have believed in Jesus and often face persecution from their families for it, and they would plead with their families to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

> "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" (John 14:6)

Our hope at Within Reach Global is that the gospel will reach people before they become "ancestors." Multitudes have still never heard the name of Jesus Christ. This truth breaks our hearts and brings us to our knees, praying to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest field.

Will you be one who answers the call with a "yes"?

[View full post](https://withinreachglobal.org/field-stories/the-ancestors)

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