NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

We have some great news to share with you!  We have been trusting the Lord together with you to provide for our monthly support as well as prayer support for our ministry in Senegal West Africa.  Well….drum roll please!  God has brought us to 100% pledged funding of our monthly support.  Thank you so much for taking this journey together with us and for your prayers and financial support.  What an incredible team God has put together over these last months. We are honored to be your hands and feet in Senegal.

As we head out on this journey we have some one time expenses that are not part of our normal budget. This last week we put tickets on hold for our flights to Senegal.  The Lord provided some wonderful rates on airline tickets: our entire family of 6 can travel to Senegal for $5,582 including travel insurance! Yet, already we had to take a higher fare class for two of our tickets because there are not enough seats left in the lower fare class.  Time is running out.  The tickets are on hold until April 6th, yet the rates are not guaranteed until the tickets are purchased.

It is so encouraging to us to see how the Lord has used you to provide for some of these one-time expenses already. While we have over $28,000 in one time expenses, God has already provided nearly $20,000 of that! (That is over and above our monthly support.)  You can visit our blog and check out our outgoing expenses page to get more details, or click on the links in this email.  Some examples are: Airplane Tickets, Visas, Paperwork, Vaccines, French Study and Setting up House in Senegal.  We just have a few more months of French Study here in Quebec and then we will be moving to Senegal.  Please take a moment to look through our outgoing expenses page and ask the Lord what part He might lead you to have in getting us to Africa!  Our number one priority at this point is our Airline Tickets so that we can lock in this good rate.

Please include a note to let us know what project you would like your gift to go toward.

New Tribes Mission
Phone: (866) 547-2460 ~ www.ntm.org/jonathan-roundy/give
1000 E. First St. Sanford, FL 32771-1487*

*Please make checks out to NTM with “Acct. #201943” in the memo and/or Include a separate note designating “for the ministry of Jonathan & Jenny Roundy”

This picture of Flooding reminds us of how we feel about learning a NEW language

So, we have wrapped up 1/2 of our first semester in French Study.  We had an oral and a written test to see how we have done.  We are so thankful to be able to study at the Language school at Parole De Vie Bethel.  Michel Roby, our  French teacher, is incredibly patient with us and is a wonderful teacher.  He has been teaching French at the school for 22 years if memory serves me well.

So…how is it going?  Well, it seems the answer we give to this question depends on what day you ask us this question, or more accurately after what “conversation” or attempted communication.  When we go to the grocery store and ask for help and get what we asked for, we feel great.  When we listen to a sermon at church and feel like we understood some of what was said we feel like it is going great.  When we come away from trying to communicate with someone and they have just looked at us like…what did you just try to say?  Well, the report is not so good.  The journey of learning a new language is a long one fraught with lots of failures and embarrassing moments.  A lesson in humility anyone?’

Please Pray:

• For Jenny and I as we are in classes that we would make the most of our French Classes.
• For our children as they are in school and with friends that they will learn French
• For us all to be brave in using our FRENCH.  We need to use it in order to improve
• For us to manage our time well and make the most of our time here in Quebec
• That we would be a blessing at Axe21 (Focus 21) church plant that we are blessed to be a part of here in Sherbrooke
• For each one in our family’s relationship with the Lord.  That we would focus on Him during this challenging time.

A view of Sherbrooke on a Fall Day

First of all, just wanna comment on how beautiful the city of Sherbrooke is.  We are so blessed to be living here during our time of French study.  The fall colors have been incredible so far.  We have already had some snow flurries, so I suppose it is promising to be a long winter.

50 minutes a day driving the twins to and from daycare & going to and from campus

So, what does our day look like.  The picture above is a part of our day we would love to shorten, but we haven’t determined yet how to teleport ourselves where we need to be.

Jenny reading with the twins on the couch

James and Jada playing "uno" in their room

A typical day/week looks like this

• Breakfast and getting kids school lunches ready
• Eat Breakfast
• Drive Emmanuel and Elena to the Parole De Vie Campus where one of us waits with them for the bus.
• Drive James and Jada to their daycare/pre-school
• Drive back to the Parole De Vie Campus for classes which start at 8:45 AM
• Classes are until 11:50 each day, except Wednesday. (Wednesday we start Chapel at 8:30 AM and have a Bible Vocabulary Workshop from 1:30-2:20)
• After classes are out we drive to pickup the twins from daycare
• Lunch
• Homework which consists of several things 1 hr Rosetta Stone, 1 hr French Media (Radio, TV etc).  During out drive time we listen to the radio for our media time.
• We have some weekly homework items that we fit in throughout the week.
  • Scripture verse memory in French
  • 60 minutes of Bible reading in French with a Bible school student.  This involves 3 trips to campus per week
  • 10 5 minute conversations in French (this starts this next week)
  • I think it is 50 minutes of French Reading (this starts this next week)
• Drive to campus to pickup Emmanuel and Elena from the Bus
• Work on the kids homework with them
• Dinner

Difference:  So as we learn a new language there are things called False Friends.  These are words that you hear and think you know what they mean…but they mean something VERY different.

French: Demande = to request or to ask for.  This one really gets me.  The other day I was in the grocery store asking and wanted something.  One of the people working in the store pointed to a manager and said Demande……from him.  I was thinking…I just wanted to ask if you had any of the 10 kilo bags of flower, I don’t want to demand anything from you.

We are so excited about some doors that God has openned for us during our time here in Quebec.  We visited Rock Forest Church here in Quebec.  On our first Sunday there we found out the Rock Forest Church was launching out a Church plant called Axe 21.  Just a note on the name, don’t do like I did, assuming Axe, was the French way of spelling the book of Acts.  I was actually quite curious about what was in Acts chapter 21.  I was visiting with the Pastor of Rock Forest Church after the service and mentioned about it being Axe (which I thought meant the Book of Acts) 21.  He said, there is no book called Axe in the French Bible, if you have one in yours, you are probably at the wrong Church.   Language blunder #1.  Assuming I knew what it meant without any real reason except that it sounded the same as the english word.  I guess english is not the language by which all other languages are measured after all.  So, to my best understanding the english version of the church name is Focus 21.  Axe 21 is part of the Acts29 network and will be the first Acts 29 Network church plant in Quebec.  One of our sending churches, Mercy Hill Lake Country, is part of the Acts 29 Network.  You can click here to see a youtube video, in english, about the AXE 21 church plant.  The Church website, which is all in French, is axe21.org .  You can read the Church profile, in english, on the Acts29 network website by clicking here.

Last Sunday was the first Sunday they met, and Jenny and I were priviledged to be there for their first service.  Jenny helped out in the children’s ministry and I was able to pick up a few words from the Sermon, since it of course was all in French.  I will post some pics and some short video clips of the worship.  You may well recognize the tune, but probably not the words.

Please pray for our family that we would be a blessing to the AXE 21 church plant and that God would use the churches in Quebec to see many come to know Him as savior.  Please pray with us for Sherbrooke and for Quebec.

Over in the Children's church the kids all had beautiful face painting done.

The series we are in pre-launch. Truth, the lies we believe and the truth we do not believe. ( my best translation)

Hallway entering the Granada Theatre where we meet for services

Inside where the service is held. Tables are setup with chairs around them

It is hard to believe, but as we begin our French Study here in Quebec it is back to kindergarten for us. One of our “textbooks” is for ages 5 to 7 years old. We really can’t read well yet, but we will start having reading assignments in October sometime. So dissappointing to be illiterate again. It is like we are little babies walking around in adult bodies. I definitely feel that way when I try to use the French I have been learning. I get this sort of look that says, you are a grown man, why are you talking like a baby and what are you saying anyhow.
We thought you would enjoy some pics of our “reading” material that we can start in October sometime and the short video clip of doing exercises to learn our alphabet and numbers.

Reading material for October

Book for ages 5-7

We had a long but good ride from Wisconsin to Quebec.  I thought you might enjoy some of our pictures from the road trip etc.  Ou plan is to share with you a few of the differences we are noticing as we get settled in.  Stay tuned for further posts about this new chapter.

Pleas Pray for us as we adjust to these differences.  It can be quite challenging for our whole family.  There is just a generally extended stress level when dealing with all of the changes.

Enjoy the pictures.  More to follow along with some commentary on the differences.   Au revoir for now!

air ride notice in multiple languages ???

We were driving down the road and I noticed this air ride notice on the side of a truck that was passing us…hmmm, we are not in kansas anymore.

Being on the road can be so tiring, but don't let the coloring book drop whatever you do

We brought along some extremely serious help for the drive up

Food and getting the wiggles out

Playland ooooh yea

James cruising the play-land

On the move after a delicious dinner

Taking turns in the truck with Grandpa Steve

Hmmm, I wonder what country that picture was taken in?

Our New Home

So had a long day today departing at 4:20 AM and arriving in London at around 10 PM Central time.  We are here though and looking at another long day of driving tomorrow.  We made it through Chicago without having to actually stop.

We completed our immigration and customs paperwork without really a hitch, so that was awesome.

Please pray for us as we have another 10 hours of driving, and who knows how long including stops tomorrow.