Jon and Jen Quast Preparing for Tribal Church Planting in Paraguay 
Our silly old bear
One of the things that we like to do with this blog is highlight a current course that we are in, and tie that into what we are doing with becoming missionaries to plant a church among the unreached people groups of the world. We get a lot of questions from time to time on this topic of missions, but there is a topic that we don’t get questions on often. The topic is how do you teach a tribal culture from the Bible. The question here is not what do you teach, but how do you teach. Not a commonly asked question, but one worth considering.
Think about how we think of a teaching situation. What comes to mind? You probably first picture a room, with people sitting down at desks. Maybe tables, maybe chairs. Oh yeah, and the room is probably climate controlled in your imagination. Now I’m guessing that in your mind there is someone standing up front. Perhaps he is dressed formerly, and he is addressing the sitting down people. He probably has a projector and a screen displaying the points he is trying to make. (which by the way he probably has three points all starting with the letter j, and a conclusion to finish his speech) The sitting down people have books and pen and paper in front of them and they are writing furiously to keep up. Oh yeah, and one more thing…QUIET!
As we look to present ourselves as teachers in someone else’s universe we have to figure out how we are going to teach. More than likely (in fact most definitely) the scenario will not look like what we saw above. The way we pass on information in the west is completely foreign to the majority of the people of the world. To quote a friend of mine: ”3 points and a poem ain’t gonna cut the mustard…”
Why not? Let’s break it down. The place that we are going to meet to teach God’s word will more than likely not qualify for a room. Try 4 posts and a roof, and you might have a better idea of a typical jungle classroom. Because there are no walls, many unexpected company may decide to join the meeting as well. By unexpected company I mean dogs, chickens, goats….I have even heard of a cassowary deciding to join the church meeting and then running off with a model of the ark of the covenant that the missionary was teaching on. So distractions are in. Quiet is out.
What about standing in front of the class and lecturing? In many cultures it may be more appropriate to sit down and teach. Some may teach by stories. In whatever situation we find ourselves we will have to be a learner first, a teacher second. We must learn how they do it. Teach them they way they learn information already. Big challenge.
Some other things to consider is our sense of urgency; actually communicating to them through our words and actions that this message is important. Teaching in the heart language of the people is another huge thing to consider. If you’ve followed what we have said at all about tribal missions you will know that we will take 2-5 years learning the language of the people before we ever teach. Why? We want the language to penetrate all the way down to their hearts. Teaching in a language other than their heart language (the language they grew up speaking, not a language they have learned) could result in an incomplete knowledge, or simply a partial understanding of the message. We want the message to take root in their hearts.
So this is kind of a recap (maybe introduction is a better word) to our class we just had called teaching considerations (go figure). Stay tuned for more next week. Remember us as we pursue Paraguay.
Till All Are Reached
Jon and Jen Quast
Maybe you’ve noticed that is has been three weeks since our last weekly update. It’s been incredibly busy. But then again, maybe you didn’t notice because it seems like business is a subject to which we all can relate, because everyone’s busy. Sometimes we are busy with things that we have to do. Sometimes we are busy with things we want to do. But other times we are busy with things we get to do.
Most of the time, before Friday night comes, I have a pretty good idea what I’m going to write about this week. This week I was continue to give news on our Culture and Language Acquisition Practicum, that continues to stretch us and prepare us for ministry. However, occassionaly a topic comes up rather unexpectedly that I can’t wait to write about. This weeks topic is one such topic. It simply cannot be put off for another week.
Right now at the Missionary Training Center, the third semester class of which we are a part are engrossed 100% in our course called the Culture and Language Acquisition Practicum. We however effectionately call this class “Dobu” for reasons that I will explain as we get going in this post.
This is the class where we try to pull everything together that we have learned at the training center thusfar. How we are doing it is one of the highlights of New Tribes Mission training. Our professors, about 10 in all, have been dressing in complete tribal “disguises” and acting out the Dobo tribal culture to us. They speak some English which, in this drama, is the trade language, but they mostly speak their tribal language. We right now are engaged in sessions where we are trying to learn their language and culture using the tools we have. Jen and I are in a small group of 6 people who meet regularly with a man named Kinosi. Kinonsi is our language helper we have hired. On top of these individual sessions we get to watch all the professors act out a Dobu tribal scene, so we can gain insight into the culture.
