The Meen of Ethiopia

The Meen of Ethiopia, numbering approximately 244,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are described as a Surmic-speaking people indigenous to southwestern Ethiopia whose population includes both highland agricultural communities and lowland pastoral communities They are an Indigenous people, with Me'en as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Nilotic people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples. They mostly adhere to Tewahedo Orthodox Christianity and Me'en is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Meen

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Ethiopia
People Cluster: Nilotic
Primary Language(s): Me'en (mym)
Primary Religion(s): Tewahedo Orthodox Christianity
Population: 244,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 10% or Greater Evangelical
People Group ID: PG011617
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Meen of Ethiopia

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Tewahedo Orthodox Christianity
Religious Affiliation: Christianity

45%
%
Tewahedo Orthodox Christi… Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Me'en
Language Family: Surmic

85%
%
Me’en Speakers

Media Resources in Me'en:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film

1 film

Bible Resources in Me'en:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
2020 Kale Hiwot Church and BS Ethiopia✓

1 entry

Or check out the Me'en bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Meen are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Meen:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Meen of Ethiopia

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
readPsalm 73:26

Pray that those who are lost and struggling to find hope will find their strength and hope in God, recognizing Him as their portion and deliverer forever.

But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.
readMark 4:20

Pray that those who have never encountered the gospel will have the opportunity to receive it, and that it will fall on good soil and bear much fruit.

For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.
readPsalm 149:4

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will be encouraged and feel immeasurably loved as they meditate on the fact that God takes pleasure in them.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
readRomans 6:23

Pray that God will bring people to faith who are excited about the eternal life they have in Christ and will want to cross cultures to share this hope with others.

Me'en Across Countries (ROP3 - 106512) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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