Jon and Jen Quast Preparing for Tribal Church Planting in Paraguay 
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.
Our business can be attributed to the class that we are going through…Culture and Language Acquisition (or affectionately known as Dobu). Yes, we are still in this class. This class is one of the most pivotal in our missionary training here in Missouri, and accordingly it lasts about half of our semester.
While we are not experts at how to do this whole missionary job because we have gone through Dobu (the class ends Monday), we do feel better prepared for the task ahead. We got some practical and technical things out of this class.
The first technical thing I’d say we have acquired is process. On day one of arriving in a new place, you want to know all the ins and outs of your new surrounding. Since you’ve gone to teach them about Jesus, natural you want to know the spiritual beliefs right away. Unfortunately, on day one, you are not ready to process those kind of deep level understandings. Jumping in too deep, before learning how to swim, normally leads to “drowning” in the culture. We have practiced a process to take us from the beginning stages of culture learning to the deeper ones.
Another technical thing we learned during this class was how to use our computers in a way that is acutally a help to us for learning language and culture (can I get an amen?). New Tribes Mission has created software to help us file anything we encounter overseas in a way that we can retrieve information as we need it. Think of it as a digital file cabinet, only there is no paper and the drawers don’t get stuck when you’re trying to look for something. The program that was use in language and culture study is really unique, and computer unsavy people like me needed all the help we could get.
A practical thing that we learned is how we react under culture pressured situations. Now that our sessions with our culture and language helper are over, we are taking a big step back and looking at what we said and what we did while we were taking this class. This will be helpful to see what we are doing right, and be encouraged, and also what things we are doing wrong but may be blind to.
The information learned in this class was priceless. It was a lot of work, and coupled with our other responsibilities (church, campus work detail, outreach) made for a busy month, but well worth. Thank you for taking the time to read, and remember us in your prayers.
Till All Are Reached
Jon and Jen Quast
