NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Yes, we just arrived in Jen’s old stomping grounds of  New England.  A recap, for those who don’t know, is as follows:  We are done with our training in Missouri;  Our Oklahoma assignment is done;  We packed up and left the midwest for good;  visited Jon’s grandparents in Buffalo New York;  Arrived in New Hampshire.

So, while in New Hampshire we are accomplishing two purposes.  The first reason we came all the way up north (and no, it wasn’t for the freezing temperatures) was to have an extended amount of time to say goodbyes to family.  We are planning on going overseas for 4 years at a time, it is important to have some closure time with family.  It’s not only important for us, but it’s important for Jamen and Jade and also for our family as it’s hard for them too.  But the second reason we came to New Hampshire was to set aside a block of time to prepare our speaking and travel calender for the rest of our time in the states.

Our sharing and traveling begin on December 5th at a Baptist Church in Portsmouth VA.  We are looking forward to this time.  After we kick it off we will be traveling and sharing up until our time of leaving for Paraguay in April.  However, we must say this is Lord willing.  Our schedule has yet to be written, and our support has yet to be raised.  We are currently at 20% of what the field of Paraguay recommend that we have in monthly support when we come.  Sound like a God-sized job?  Well we have a God-sized God.

Please pray for us we start this.  Pray that we will be diligent.  Pray that we will do things in the Lord’s timing.  Pray that God’s people would be moved to support this ministry.  And pray that the gospel would go out where it has never gone  before as a result of our collective obedience to the task of reaching this world for Christ.

Till All Are Reached

Jon and Jen Quast

This week we completed step one of many more steps that will finally lead us to our final destination…Paraguay! Step one was to get our passports, which are now being processed and we should receive them in the next 6 weeks or so. Its pretty exciting to have completed this step, feels like we are getting somewhere. Thank you to all of you have supported us and helped us get this far!

We are in GA! The weather has been amazing and we are soaking it up. The 4th of July was spent down town enjoying the parade and other small town actives. We’ve been spending our time helping out at church and getting to know new people and catching up with friends. Jamen and Jade are doing pretty good considering we have uprooted them from everything familiar and dragging  them half way across the country. Jon and I are doing well, everyday the Lord continues to teach us to trust and be content in all things!

So much has happened in this chapter of our lives.  Our time in Missouri has been long, and it has also been eventful.  In the past 22 months we have added a new member to our family, completed 3 semesters of church planting training, spent a semester studying linguistics, grown as a couple, grown with the Lord…well you get the idea.  But now it is finally time to move on.

Officially done in Missouri 10 days, and ready  to set sail we thank the Lord for this time.  Although we have every desire to be in a tribal location yesterday, and although we wake up every day yearning to be in Paraguay, the training that we received was vital for our preparedness in Paraguay and in a church plant.  We now have the tools to show up in a tribe and build relationships, learn language, learn culture, develop community programs such as literacy and hygiene, and also how to skillfully teach the Scriptures chronologically in a dynamic way.

However the tools we have received are merely tools, and truth be told God delights in me presenting myself empty before Him.  God prefers a hunk of clay that can be formed into a useful vessel fit for His service.  If we endeavor to reach the lost with the tools we have received, surely He will cause us to fail, but if we in complete dependence and obedience to the Father give of ourselves, He will accomplish in us the good works that He has placed before us.

So with that in mind this chapter in the story of reaching the unreached comes to a close.  Here’s a look into the chapter in front of us.  This summer we will be heading our on a trip to accomplish two goals:  Expose people to the need that exists in our world for tribal missions, and also to raise our financial and prayer support to a level that we would be able to leave for Paraguay.  After the summer is over we head to Oklahoma for our 7 week on location mega-linguistic-test as we live with the Cherokee people.  We will learn some of their language (enough for a linguistic write-up).  This is kind a trial run in a controlled environment what we will do in the tribe in Paraguay.

So, maybe you’re wondering when we will be arriving in Paraguay.  We do have some news to report.  We are slated to arrive in Paraguay April 2011.  It still seems like a ways off, but it is nice to finally have an arrival time set.  In order for that to happen we are going to need to raise our monthly support level.  We praise God for getting us to about 10% of what the field of Paraguay recommends we have, but we will need to get that up higher before we can leave.  Pray for us as we visit churches and individuals this summer.

So in summary:  training in Missouri is done, heading out on a support raising trip this summer, going to Oklahoma to finish linguistics in the fall, more support raising, and Paraguay in April!  But only as James 4:15 reminds us: “If the Lord wills.”

This post is extremely extremely overdue, but better late then never.  In fact, the tardiness of a news update is a good indicator of why it is so overdue…business!  Ok, ok, who’s not busy right?  Well keep reading and we’ll be sure to fill you in on what we do everyday and how that relates to what we want to do with tribal church planting.

Jen is superwoman (have I said that before?) and supermom for that matter.  She is longer in classes during the day, she has completed the church planting training and spends mornings and afternoons at home watching the two little ones.  She does a great job of holding down the fort while I’m in classes.  But right now she is also actively preparing for Paraguay.  During the day she is currently making a list of all our earthly possessions to decide what things we have, what things we will need in Paraguay, what we need to buy, and what we need to get rid of.  We really feel good about the list that we are coming up with.  We are going to have to do that sooner or later, and she has been doing it now so we won’t have to worry about it later.  Also in the evenings she is still plugging away at her Spanish course.  How she still has any brainpower left after watching the kids all day I don’t know, but God is giving her some extra energy I suppose.

My day is spent in the classroom with the linguistics course.  ( Again linguistics is just a fancy way to say taking the noises that people make and figuring out how to write it all down, and how to put it together)  I am in class 5 hours a day, with an average of 4 hours of homework a night.  Needless to say I am brain-dead most days by the end of the day.

So…..how are the things that you are doing now getting you ready for Paraguay??

The possessions list:  This is an easy one.  We are going to have to pack eventually, and we are going to need to get a few more things by way of supplies.  Obviously we are taking stuff to Paraguay with us, but this is helping us decided what stuff.

Spanish study:  I thought that they don’t speak Spanish in the tribal areas.  Why Spanish?  While it is true that Spanish is not the language of the people that we will work with, it is the language of the country of Paraguay (Think about 100 years ago English was the language of America, but the Navajo people only spoke Navajo, even though they were in what was called America at the time).  Although the language of the country of Paraguay is Spanish, the tribal areas speak there own languages.  But that being said…we will still be LIVING in Paraguay and therefore will need to know Spanish if we are going to be able to function in that country.  Studying Spanish now gets us to the people we are going to reach more efficiently.

Linguistics:  I spend all day looking at languages from all around the world to learn things that happen in languages so I can try to figure out how I would write those languages and explain those languages to others.  The people that we will go to in Paraguay will likely not have any system for writing at all and will therefore need someone to help them develop their own system of writing.  (How can they have the Bible in their language if there is no way to write their language?)  It is of absolute necessity to be able to do the linguistic process with the people group we will be working with in Paraguay.  Believe it or not it is extremely complicated to write and explain a previously unknown language.  I will go on record and say that the study of linguistics is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do.

So, further uphill we climb.  The road to the unreached is definitely uphill.  If it were easy no doubt someone would have already reached them.  But we continue on, looking unto Christ as our Provider, our Enabler, and our Motivation.  For the love of Christ compels us…

Thank you for your prayers.  We can’t do without those.                                                           Thank you for your financial support.  You know who you are, and we would have had to go home long ago if it weren’t for your sacrifice.

Till All Are Reached

Jon and Jen Quast (Jamen and Jade)

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  However, either due to our internet connection or my lack of computer ability I am unable to upload a picture of Jamen holding our new daughter Jade.  So I guess that means I’ll just have to write a news article at least a thousand words long :)

Maybe it would be cool to give an update on life/ministry (can the two be distinguished?) on each of us.

Jon.  I have just started my linguistic training.  Linguistics is basically just fancy talk for the process of taking sounds in a language and reducing them to writing.  Sounds easy, but I assure you its not :)  Many steps are required to get a useable written language.  Right now we  have been reviewing a process called Phonemic Analysis that we have studied previously in our training.  We are now starting to dive in deeper into the subject, and it is definitely difficult.  I wish I could be more descriptive of what is complicated with the process, but in order to do that I would have to talk about how symmetry would make you suspicious that a pre-nasalized bilabial stop would unite with it’s unmodified bilabial stop conterpart based in the pre-nasalized one’s limited distribution and also by the fact that a pre-nasalized alveolar stop united with its unmodified phone, but despite all this you have a contrast in identical environments making the two phones separate and not allaphones.  I could say all that, but that may be confusing because it contains a lot of linguistic lingo.  Just know that its a blast (for me) and also one of the most (if not the most) useful tools I will get before the mission field.

Jen.  Jen is taking a Spanish course right now through a computer program we got for her.  While we are not hoping that she is fluent in Spanish before we get to Paraguay, it would be nice for her to have some knowledge of the language so that we can start building friendships day one in Paraguay.

Jamen.  Completely potty trained and can identify every letter in the alphabet except “v”.  Is there anything this kid can’t do?  He is truly amazing and we count it a blessing to have him every day.  His favorite things to do these days is play with his matchbox cars (rolling them into things to watch the cool crashes) and also reading Dr. Seuss (or more accurately having Dr. Seuss read to him).  He likes Jade, although most of the time he just kind of ignores her.  At least he’s not jealous…yet.

Jade.  Jade is very healthy despite our concerns early on with her big birthmark.  She is over ten pounds already (geez) and likes to be awake. (especially when we like to be asleep)  She is doing everything a kid her age should be doing.  She is definitely the life of the party at our house and we thank God for this new blessing.

So as you can see life is going on for us as we continue to pursue tribal church planting in Paraguay.  Praise God with us about our support level as it is the highest it has ever been since we started with New Tribes.  We still have a long ways to go, and we are already praying for our partnership time coming up this summer.  By God’s grace we will see an indigenous tribal church established in an unreached people group in Paraguay.

Jamen and Jade

2009.  No doubt I will remember this year.  This year was filled with challenges, as I’m sure all would agree.  The daily curve balls of life just kept coming and coming all year long.  It was a year that we pushed on ahead to finish our training with New Tribes Mission.  A year who’s summer allowed us to make many new friends who will help us with this task of reaching the unreached.  2009 was quite a year.

And now as we enter the new year, we enter it with a new family member.  On December 30th at 10:26 am we welcomed our daughter Jade Noel Quast into the world.  We are very thankful that our prayers that Jen would go into labor naturally were answered as labor pains started 8 hours before she was scheduled to be induced.  She made it through the entire delivery like superwoman.  We both cried as we held her for the first time.

2010 is a new year.  Once again I will have to adjust to dating papers, by first scratching out the 09 I will inevitably accidentally write down first, and then trying to decide if I’m supposed to just write 10, or 2010…I’m not sure.  This  year as you all know we will be taking one last training course supplemental to the training we have already received and then making plans to be in Paraguay the first of next year.  It’s always an adventure I’m thankful for, and now we get to experience the ride with one more family member.

Thank you for your support, your congratulations, and also your prayers during this joyous time.  Please continue to praise Jesus with us for the awesome Christmas present.

So yeah…I don’t think any of us were quite ready for this picture, but it’s a good parallel to today.  Graduation from our church planting training almost took us by surprise.  This semester has been our most chaotic by far, and we still feel like we just got back from summer break (actually I think I honestly still have a bag to unpack…)

I guess we have hyped up our graduation from the Missionary Training Center enough.  We have been talking about the implications of completing the required training, being cleared for membership, and accepting membership starting January 1st.  I guess probably the bigger question on everyone’s mind is:  what now?!

Immediately?  Have a baby :)  Baby Jade is due any minute, and we are waiting for her to come.  No real contractions yet, but we are expecting her to be here at any time.  Until then that’s what is on our mind.  We look forward to (hopefully) catching our breath and enjoying Christmas as our little family.  We have some family coming to visit after Christmas.  We will be in Missouri our whole Christmas break.

In January we start anew with shift in focus.  I (Jon) am starting my linguistics training.  I have mentioned this before, and will only mention it again.  The study of linguistics is a pretty technical field, and pretty boring when you go to describe what it is.  But where I might be able to garner some interest is in describing how it will be used in a church plant.  We are endeavoring to go where no missionary has gone before.  Therefore the language of the people will not have been learned by outsiders before.  Therefore there will be no textbooks to learn the language, and more than likely no system for even writing the language down.  Linguistics will take care of those problems (among other things) making it very valuable.  Now, its not required to know linguistics to go with New Tribes Mission, and that’s why we were able to graduate tonight.  But we have been advised to spare ourselves some time and frustration and get trained in linguistics.  So, we will take another semester to do so.

So what will Jen do while I’m in class?  Well, besides adjust to the craziness of two kids (mom’s are knowingly nodding to that statement), we have just bought Jen a language course in Latin American Spanish.  While this course won’t take her to fluency in the language, it will give her a jumpstart into one of the national languages of Paraguay.  Many of you know that I lived a year in Argentina, and therefore have a good start in Spanish.  This is an effort to even our language abilities so we are closer to the same spot when we get to Paraguay.  We also feel that this move is in accordance to a principle we strive to live by:  redeeming the time.

Everything we are doing at this point we are evaluating in light of Paraguay.  We don’t want to be caught twiddling our thumbs waiting to arrive in Paraguay before we are actively involved in the work.  We will do what we can now, to redeem the time to be better affective when we get there.