The Wahau Kenyah of Indonesia

The Wahau Kenyah of Indonesia, numbering approximately 9,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are a Wehea, or Wahau, subgroup of the Modang-Kenyah peoples along the Mahakam River's tributaries in East Kalimantan's Kutai Regency, tracing ancestral origin to the Apo Kayan Highlands where Kenyah populations concentrated most heavily until the early 1980s. They mostly adhere to Protestantism and Wahau Kenyah is their primary language.

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

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Malay Peoples
Country: Indonesia
People Cluster: Borneo-Kalimantan
Primary Language(s): Wahau Kenyah (whk)
Primary Religion(s): Protestantism
Population: 9,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 5% or Greater but Less than 10% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG022621
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Pray for the Wahau Kenyah of Indonesia

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: Protestantism
Religious Affiliation: Christianity

—
%
Protestantism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Wahau Kenyah
Language Family: Austronesian

76%
%
Kenyah, Wahau Speakers

Media Resources in Wahau Kenyah:

Films:

No film resources are listed for this language.

Bible Resources in Wahau Kenyah:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Or check out the Wahau Kenyah bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Wahau Kenyah 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 Wahau Kenyah:
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 Wahau Kenyah of Indonesia

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
readRomans 5:10

Pray that any who may be enemies of God will grasp the depth of God's love demonstrated through Christ's death for the ungodly, and be reconciled to Him.

Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!
readPsalm 96:9

Pray that many who do not yet know Jesus will come to know Him and worship Him in the splendor of His holiness.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
readPsalm 51:10

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will quickly repent when they sin and walk with clean hearts and right spirits as they grow in their relationship with the Lord.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
read2 Corinthians 5:21

Pray that Christians will cross cultures and share the hope of Christ, and that many will trust the One who took their sins and offers them His righteousness.

Kenyah, Wahau Across Countries (ROP3 - 104841) 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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