Response to Jon and Anna Kvist (Luke Stoltzfoos)

Jon and Anna Kvist have been many places throughout their missions, from Bulgaria to South Africa. Anna, specifically, has been to 7 countries that she listed in our class(Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Lesotho, South Africa, and Thailand). Throught their travels they have learned that one main thing to reaching people is that you have to meet them where their at, try to find where their treasures are (because their hearts are also there), and you will connect on a personal level with mass groups of people. This is coupled with not starting to be about yourself, use relationships with your culture and the target audience's. For example, Jon said he used that he was so white and he's been sun burnt so much, perhaps it would be a better thing to be dark-skinned, and he used this in a culture where most would be dark-skinned. Examples of the couple's connectability would be that they can list how certain cultures can be reached with certain details about God. Specifically, God is a loving god, but even though muslims have ninty-nine names for god, all characteristics of god, not one of the ninty-nine is for love, so you can use God's love for reaching them. Jon had gone to S.O.S. ministry school and gave examples of what they do or what they have at least tried to do to reach people in that community (Sweden). Some of the things included: baking a cake for neighbors and trying to get invited into their home to become connected, sports tournaments with five minutes of gospel, cultural exchange parties, etc. They feel called to missions and work two average jobs to fund their trips. The jobs also fund Anna's school in which she's studying to become a nurse. They say to remember that without compassion you will fail, and I find that to be a great and amazing statement, not to mention true.