Jon and Jen Quast Learning Language and Culture of Paraguay 
Even though our second semester at the Missionary Training Center is winding down and we are gearing up for this summer, we have one last class here in Missouri that is of extreme importance. The class is Culture and Language Acquisition Methodology. (WOW, that sounds important huh?) Or, in normal English, the class could be called: When you show up in the tribe, how do you start learning how to communicate with the people and how do you find out what things are important to them and what things need to be analyzed. This class is the "how" to function and get from the place of being an outsider in the village on day one, to be a functioning member of the community by the time you begin teaching. (I think you get it)
The basis for learning language and culture is relationships. This may seem obvious, but in all reality this is a fairly new strategy within the mission. In the "old days" (even though some missionaries were relationship centered) the plan was get a little info from the village, study in your office really hard, and when you understand all your data, go get a little more. The result was a missionary who was extremely lopsided in the office and not in the village, communicating to the people that they didn’t have time for them. Culture was not experienced, and therefore not understood. Teaching in this scenario only started after years and years of language study and sometimes was not well accepted because the relationships had been neglected.
When New Tribes Mission adopted this relationship centered approach to Culture and Language Acquisition, some shifts began happening. Most notably language learning time was dramatically reduced. It’s a novel concept, but basically the more time spent in the village listening and speaking with the people in the native language, the faster the language was learned. Languages that in the past took our missionaries 5-7 years to learn were then being learned in 2-4. There are some languages in the islands of Papua New Guinea that are now being learned in 1 year! The Gospel getting out was accelerated.
But probably even more importantly, people have been more receptive to the gospel now that they perceive the missionaries to be friends and not foreigners. Think about it: would you believe a friend or a stranger if they told you something "outrageous"? I would imagine your friend would hold greater sway. It is no less true of unreached people groups. While they are different in their culture from us, they are still people at the end of the day. The words of a friend are powerful.
Center language study on relationships sounds good now, but when you start thinking about it practically you realize what a ride you are in for. How many friends do you have that are non-Christians? Not aquaintences…friends. I would guess that our Christian friends greatly outnumber our non-Christian friends. And how about people with whom you have nothing in common? How many friends like that do you have? I am talking about real 100% genuine friends. If there is nothing or little in common it isn’t easy to have a friendship. Unreached people groups, are by definition, non-Christian, and culturally they are very disimilar to our culture. We are already burdened with the fact that we need God’s love to shine through us, because humanly speaking, our love isn’t going to be pure enough to have good relationships on the mission field.
The Gospel being proclaimed depends on us loving those people. How can we do it? Only through Christ’s love being manifest in our lives can we expect to have genuine relationships. You see, the "relationship centered" principle of our methodology is not simply relationships with the people themselves, it also includes our relationship with God, for that is the basis for all other relationships.
