NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

We are still living in a guest house owned by New Tribes Mission here in Asuncion Paraguay. We haven’t gone and looked at any houses yet because everyone in Paraguay is a little busy these days. Actually May 16th is the national holiday for the 200th year anniversary of Paraguay’s independence from Spain. This is kind of a big deal, and it was being celebrated from the time we got here until now. Everywhere and every direction you look the city is alive with banners, flags, colors, parades etc celebrating the Bicentennial.

I wasn’t around for the United States bicentennial so it is really neat to be a part of Paraguay’s. I consider myself fairly patriotic…I love my country. Sometimes its easy to forget that in other countries people are just as patriotic and love their country just as much as we do. It makes sense. Some of my favorite songs in English are patriotic ones, songs that speak of the stars and stripes, pine trees (Georgia), and fried chicken. (Ok, maybe fried chicken isn’t patriotic, but it should be). Why do these songs speak to us? Because they are talking about comfort things, things that have good memories tied to them; they are the things we love.

It’s interesting, Asuncion has to be the greenest city I’ve ever been to. Not green meaning they recycle, but green meaning plant life. Trees and bushes and flowers abound even in the downtown downtown area. It was interesting to listen to a lot of their patriotic songs referencing the flowers. These are the kind of songs that speak to them, because of the comfort factor of the flowers.

People have different cultures and different languages, and even different worldviews. The differences are apparent. But sometimes its neat to find the things that are strikingly similar between us.

We attended our host church for the first time on Sunday. What an experience that was! Our church is a southern baptist church, and honestly, isn’t too different from what we are used to. They have childcare for the kids, sunday school, someone brought snacks to Sunday school, the Sunday school class got out late for church (ahem ahem Mike), we sang songs for awhile, we shook hands during one song, the preacher preached and everyone went home. Sound familiar?

I (Jon) was at a bit of an advantage in that my comprehension level in Spanish has surprisingly remained very high from my time in Argentina 7 years ago. I could track with where to take my kids, the Sunday school lesson, and the sermon. Jen had a harder time as she was taken around the church by the women who really wanted to get to know her. As the Sunday school lesson started a couple tears trickled down her face. She wasn’t sad, or frustrated, but at that moment she was overwhelmed. A strange language can do that to you. She also hadn’t cried since we arrive in Paraguay (all the ladies give an understanding nod as they read that)

As the morning went on, the overwhelmed feeling subsided. We were invited over to a couple’s house for lunch. When we got there the husband told me to get in the car and go with him to go buy lunch. That left Jen in a house by herself with a lady who spoke no English. I felt for her, but knew it was probably best I go with the husband. I came back to house expecting a completely overwhelmed wife but a found a wife who had seized the opportunity and somehow had a great conversation with the wife and they had become good friends (women’s intuition?)

We loved our first Sunday at our new church and seemed to be received well. We look forward to the months ahead.

Jen was a lucky momma who got to celebrate Mothers Day twice this year. Why you ask? Well, its not just because she is a great mom to our two and 1/2 kids (Please don’t read into that. Jon is the 1/2 kid) but because Paraguay doesn’t celebrate Mothers Day the same day that we do. They celebrate it a week after us. So our first Sunday in Paraguay was Mothers Day.

It’s cool that we can be in another country and still have holidays that resemble ours. But they have a very unique tradition for celebrating mothers day that I think that you’ll enjoy. The tradition is, all the youth from the church will get together about Midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning. They bring some instruments with them. Then they go around from house to house serenading all the mothers until sunrise. Now how about that tradition? Pretty unique, and I must say I like the sound of that. I’m not sure how they did it but there seemed to be a good bit of youth there on Sunday morning in church. But I’m not sure how many slept in.

Since we just got here we didn’t find out a lot of details about Mothers Day in Paraguay, but next year we will definitely be able to experience more and ask more questions so we can continue to dig deeper into the ways and reasons the people think the way they do.

We have some Paraguayans fulfilling some very specials roles for us right now. Before we arrived in Paraguay, a member of our team searched the city to find a church that would host us while we are in Asuncion. Well he was able to find la Iglesia Bautista de Villa Mora. Our host pastor is a man by the name of Arnaldo and his wife’s name is Kluesa. Also in the church was a couple who offered to personally host us. Their names are Eduardo and Gundula.

A host couple makes sure that we have everything we need. Right now they are helping us find a place to live. Once we find a place they will help us get the things we need to move in. It’s so important that we have Paraguayan friends who can help us do this because as Paraguayans they will know where to go to get stuff, and also they will now what is a good price and can help us from being ripped off. In short they are our “in” to the city.

Our host couple will also help us with language and culture, although not exclusively. It’s dangerous to learn language and culture from just one person. For example, in our country, how many 16 year old boys and 80 year old women view life the same way? They do share some common beliefs that our latent in American Culture, however there are also great differences in thinking. If someone learned culture from just the 16 year old, they would be severely limited in their understanding of Americans. Same with language. How many people in America talk the same way? We understand each, but consider the differences between Mississippi and Massachusettes in accent. Consider the difference between a 15 year old girl who inserts the word “like” (I was like going to the store and like a saw my friend who was all like…) every couple words, to the elderly deacon who prays in King James English. There are vast differences in how a language can be spoken. Therefore it is important to have multiple culture and language helpers. Our host pastor can assist us in this way by coordinating help from others in the church.

And last but not least, these people can make us feel welcome. And indeed they have. We feel very welcome and at home in these early days of ministry in Paraguay.

God gave us a vision a long time ago, to see a church established amongst a people where there is currently no gospel witness. After years of training, additions to the family, churches visited and partnered with, and many miles put on the ol’ Ford, the day has finally arrived where we have arrived in our new home country. On Tuesday May 10th we flew all night to Asuncion Paraguay, our home for the next couple years.

We thank you all who have had a part in arriving at this momentous day. Many of you have sacrificed your time and resources to see us arrive at this moment. We could not have done it without you. In the next couple of days you are going to get a lot of new blog posts as we relate our first few days in Paraguay. Until then, as they say in Paraguay, chao!

Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to get the video into our blog. But for all Quast video updates please check out www.youtube.com/jonandjenquast

This morning I did some training for something which was more fun than work, but useful none-the-less.  My brother-in-law, who is an avid motorcyclist, took me out this morning to teach me the basics of riding.  It may surprise some of you that I don’t really have any experience riding.  A friend let me ride his bike once in Missouri, but that is my previous exposure.  It’s not something I grew up with, but its a skill that will be useful in Paraguay.  When we are living in the capital we’ll be riding public transportation, but when we move interior we may find ourselves using dirt bikes as our primary transportation.  Like I said, still to early to know if we will get bikes when we go to Paraguay, but in any case its useful to know how to ride just in case.

Its been beautiful weather here for weeks, with it in the mid 60s in the mornings.  However, wouldn’t you know that this morning it was in the low 40s.  Although I never got the bike over 20 mph, because we were in a parking lot, I was freezing.  My brother-in-law felt sorry for me and let me wear his biking jacket which helped big-time.

So in summary, a couple stalls, a couple shaky turns,  a few lurches, and two hours later I was feeling very comfortable on the bike starting stopping and turning.  Unfortunately I can’t take it out on the road because I don’t have my license, but it is nice to know I could graduate from the parking lot.

As many of you know we are in the middle of an aggressive plan to leave for Paraguay on May 10th.  When time is that short, every day counts big time as far as trying to communicate our need and how people and churches can be involved.  Yesterday we had an awesome opportunity to share at a church that was looking for a missionary couple to be involved with.  But the story for us started on Saturday night.

Saturday morning I woke up with a feeling that a small cold was coming on.  No big deal I thought.  I just went about my day.  I didn’t take anything for it, because I didn’t want to run to the store since I didn’t think we had anything for it.  We had some friends stop by for a visit that evening.  While we were visiting with them the cold began to come on strong and hard.  Before I knew what hit me I was feverish, shivering, and achy.  I still had to finish preparing what I was sharing at the Church at Suncoast the next day.  I could feel the fever rising.  I decided to turn in early and then just wake up extra early to do what I needed to do.

I tossed and turned all night.  The fever hit pretty hard (I finally checked my temperature after I had a dose of Tylenol I found.  Even with the medicine reducing my fever, it was still at 100)  I woke in the morning and realized my cold wasn’t better.  It was worse.  And now it was morning and we had to drive an hour to visit the church, meet people all morning, spend the afternoon was the pastor and his family, before sharing our vision and strategy for ministry that evening.

It was hard to understand what God was doing, but I’m reminded of what Paul said that His strength is shown in our weakness.  On top of that Paul also said that when he preached the Gospel it was in cleverness or power of speech, but rather Paul preached in an unimpressive way so that God could receive full credit for the outcome.  By God’s grace I made it through the day.  (A bottle of 5 hour energy also helped)

We met many nice people in the morning service.  It was truly a blessing to be in such a nice church.  We connected well with the pastor in the afternoon.  We even share some favorite authors and books.  But the inspiring thing was the evening service.  I never did have the clarity of mind to finish preparing what I was sharing, but at the moment I needed it, clarity returned and we were able to share.  The congregation listened well and asked many good questions that showed their engagement in what had been shared.

They vote next week on whether they will be a supporting church for our ministry.

This is a short news update.  It may seem kind of silly, but this is just another piece of the puzzle as we prepare to leave.  One of the expenses missionaries have when the prepare to go overseas is luggage.  You have to take stuff with you, and you need something to carry that stuff in, which makes luggage a part of the picture.  This week we took the step of buying some duffel bags.

We found an auction on ebay that was selling 10 duffel bags for a very good price.  The duffels that we got are extremely sturdy, waterproof to an extent, mildew resistant, and also have straps so that we can use them as backpacks.  We decided to go the duffel route just because, personally we find them easier to manage when travelling.  And the duffel are all the same, so they will be easy to spot on that thing that goes around in circles at the airport

We have been in the midst of a very exciting time in our Partnership Development stage of ministry.  For those who are our friends on facebook, or receive our email updates you have no doubt heard by now, but we are trying to leave for Paraguay on May10th.  That leaves us just 12 short weeks until we board a plane.  Right now we are at 36% of our recommended support for Paraguay.  So we are in the midst of busy time of planning for our departure date, and also trying to raise the funds necessary to live and thrive overseas.

The month of February has been an exciting time.  We came back down to our home area in Camden County GA to spend some time with our sending church and a supporting church.  Our sending church has been in the midst of revival meetings which has given us the opportunity to be with our congregation almost every night the last couple of nights.  That has been good to reconnect with everyone.  It has also been so good to see our congregation share in our excitement to be departing soon for the field.

This Sunday we will be in Camp Pickney Baptist Church in Folkston GA.  This church is currently without a pastor so we will be preaching for them Sunday morning and Sunday night.  We are looking forward to meeting these people and are excited to share with them the need for tribal missions around the world.

Next Sunday we will be at Suncoast Baptist Church in Jacksonville FL.  This is another great opportunity to share our vision and plan for future ministry in Paraguay and look forward to seeing how God’s people in that church respond to the message.  God has really opened the door for us to share.

During the rest of our week we are doing the same thing we always try to do in this stage of ministry:  be available to meet with people whenever possible, contact those who are supporting us and tell them how much we appreciate them, study when we have time, and pour ourselves out in ministry relationships when we have the opportunity.  Basically just let God use us where we are at, and share what our plan is every chance we get.

Pray for us during this month as we hope to be at 50% of our support by the end of February.

Pray for us also that we would begin to see our plan for March materialize

Pray for Jamen and Jade while schedules are flexible and we are moving alot.  Its tough on them sometimes.

Pray that we would be making the right choices now, to see an unreached people group come to Christ as a result of our going and telling.