The Bola of Papua New Guinea

The Bola of Papua New Guinea, numbering approximately 29,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are an indigenous ethnic group of Papua New Guinea, West New Britain province: northeast coast, Willaumez Peninsula. They mostly adhere to Roman Catholicism and Bola is their primary language.

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

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Pacific Islander Peoples
Country: Papua New Guinea
People Cluster: New Guinea
Primary Language(s): Bola (bnp)
Primary Religion(s): Roman Catholicism
Population: 29,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 2% or Greater but Less than 5% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG009807
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Bola of Papua New Guinea

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: Roman Catholicism
Religious Affiliation: Christianity

81%
%
Roman Catholicism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Bola
Language Family: Austronesian

65%
%
Bola Speakers

Media Resources in Bola:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film

1 film

Bible Resources in Bola:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
2011 Wycliffe Bible Translators✓✓✓

1 entry

Or check out the Bola bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Bola 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 Bola:
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 Bola of Papua New Guinea

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.
readEphesians 2:4-5

Pray that those who have not yet received new life will be made alive together with Christ, saved by grace and raised up with Him to newness of life.

Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
readPsalm 47:6

Pray that believers will have a heart to invite others to trust in Christ alone so that they might sing praises to His name.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
read2 Corinthians 5:17

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will understand and experience the truth that in Christ, they are a new creation, and the old has gone and the new has come.

And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
readMark 5:20

Pray that God will bring people who appear beyond hope to faith in Jesus and that they will then go and tell others of the marvelous things He has done.

Bola Across Countries (ROP3 - 114882) 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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