In 2011, Drake and Megan moved to Oaxaca, Mexico, to serve full time with a missions research project, Etnopedia.org. This project provides an open-source platform for a global community of multi-lingual Christian volunteers to create profiles of specific People Groups around the world that have never heard the gospel and translate this information into the languages of local Christian missionary movements. Etnopedia provides a means to gather insights from field research, government documents, and academic reports in many languages to to be made accessible for all. Security and reliability of information are paramount to this project, as all contributors must be approved, and all edits carefully scrutinized by the Etnopedia community. Etnopedia is a “wiki” website like Wikipedia, favoring quick-loading content over impressive graphic design. It is both a ministry and a labor of love as a 100% volunteer based endeavor. All articles and translations are created by hand, increasingly aided by advancements in AI technology. In the same way that Bibles must be updated in response to changes in languages, Etnopedia must also be updated to account for the dynamic nature of cultures and languages. Most of the articles on Etnopedia reflect requests by indigenous missionary movements to have information available to them in their own languages about people groups they are led to disciple. For this reason, many gaps remain in the data for each country. Currently, most of the information is available in English, Spanish, and German, as native speakers of these languages have been the most engaged in this project. Drake’s role with this project has ranged from data collection on the ground in Mexico and South America to building maps showing the locations of people groups in various countries. The best examples of his contributions can be viewed (in Spanish) for Mexico and Colombia. He is currently updating information for various countries in Sub-Saharan African countries where he is currently engaging on the ground with local church-planting missionary movements. Contact us for more information about this project and ways to get involved.
