Jon and Jen Quast Preparing for Tribal Church Planting in Paraguay 
Recently here at the Missionary Training Center we had a class in the Bible Tranlation category taught by Dave Brunn. Dave was a former missionary in Papua New Guinea among the Lamogai people group. There he labored for years teaching them God’s Word and eventually translating it for them. He later went on to serve as a translation consultant to other missionaries who were active in translating the Bible. Needless to say, the man know a thing or two about translating God’s Word.
Bible Translation has been something that has interested me for a long time. Before coming to be a part of New Tribes Mission, I researched a fellow organization called the Wycliffe Bible Translators to see if God would have me be a part of what they were doing. Ultimately the Lord led here but that desire to be part of a translation process has always interested me and I can’t wait to be a part wherever I may find myself someday.
One thing the class was about was how careful one must be when translating God’s Word. A simple translation error caused by lack of understanding the people’s language can result in major miscommunication. There are many funny examples from products like Pepsi and the "Got Milk" campaign. However when errors such as these are made with God’s Word, the result isn’t funny at all; it could be disastrous.
One last thing I’ll mention from the class is Dave taught us that none of us more than likely will ever become a Greek scholar. We would have to dedicate our lives to Greek in order to do that, in which case we would not be dedicating our lives to reaching an unreached people group. Rather we will be relying heavily on what the Greek scholars say about the translation of a certain word or phrase. In order to use this Greek helps effectively, a basic working knowledge of Greek will be extrememly beneficial.
So…after thinking about it awhile, I decided to start studying the basics of Greek while still doing my other training here. So far, so good! I have a couple of guys helping me and I’m in it for the long haul. Though I’ll never write a book or be a scholar (not my desire) I believe it to be of the utmost importance to communicate God’s Word as it is written. To say what it is the Bible really says. The unreached people group to whom God will send us someday depend on my wife and my faithfulness here and now training to go out.
For those curious I am currently studying out of William Mounce’s book "Basic’s of Biblical Greek".
