Hello from Sakata, Japan! We are visiting our mission church on the west coast. We are with the mission team from our sending church, First Baptist Church of Arlington. All the team members are great and it has been a blessing to serve with them! Please pray for all of us as we share His love with many people this week.
Thank you for your love and prayers!
Categories: Family, Hope for Japan News.
If you have ever lived away from your family and friends, you know how hard it can be. Even though we are called to be here and love the people, it gets tough sometimes. It really helps to talk to someone who’s in the same boat.
Recently, we invited our missionary friends, the Qualls family (from Texas!), to our house for dinner. We had a great time with them. We were encouraged by them as we shared our joys and struggles of ministering in Japan. The Qualls have been serving in Sendai for a while and we met them when they came to a special event held at our church. They are with another organization and go to a different church, but we asked them to be a part of the new ministry called “LIFE” which offers a free English class and ends with a worship service and fellowship in English every Sunday night. It has been a blessing to serve with them. They are also helping with disaster relief work in Sendai and it is always helpful to share our strategies and get ideas. We have learned a lot from them!
Of course, Luke loves playing with their four kids! We really want Luke to learn English and playing with English speaking kids is the best way for him to learn!
We thank God for the Qualls and the ways they have blessed us! We look forward to serving with them and encouraging each other as we minister to Japanese people.
Group photo after dinner.
Kevin leading worship at LIFE.
Luke’s big sister! He keeps following her wherever she goes!
Categories: Hope for Japan News.
Hello! This is Luke! I hope you are doing well. I know you miss me, so I decided to show you some pictures of me! Enjoy!
I like my daddy’s phone. I wonder why I can’t play with this all the time.
Did you know I love playing with water?
I can sleep on the train! And people keep looking at me while I sleep!
This is my new pose when someone tries to take a picture of me. I can’t make a “peace” sign with my fingers like my Japanese friends.
I am happy most of the time, but I cry sometimes.
I just love chilling at the zoo.
This is my favorite ride, Anpanman.
My new favorite food. Don’t worry, I shared with mommy and daddy.
My grandpa taught me how to play the recorder.
This is me and my friend playing together. I love going to his house and I know mommy loves it, too!
You know, I was just trying to see if these fit me…
I told you I love water!!!
I can spend hours looking at fish.
I love playing the guitar and singing in the car.
This is how I play hockey in the house.
My friends came to my house to swim with me!
Hope you all had a great summer!
We went to the Anpanman Museum.
Grandpa bought me a new ukulele. It’s my favorite toy right now.
As you can see, I am growing up! Thank you for thinking of me and praying for me. Please pray for 5 friends who are coming to Japan from our church in Arlington. They are coming this Saturday and we will be visiting many places. I am excited to introduce them to my Japanese friends! Thank you for your prayers!
Categories: Family.
It has been a while since we posted about the disaster relief work but we are still going to the disaster areas on a regular basis. Most of the time, we go as a family or with the team from overseas but once a month, we go with the Japanese believers from the local churches. It has been a blessing to get to know them and to serve with them. When we go together, we deliver vegetables to more than 150 families. After delivering fresh vegetables, we gather in a small room and have tea, sing songs, do craft activities, and talk. We love spending time with these precious people. They also tell us that they look forward to having us every month. At one location, there is a sweet old lady who loves to dance and sing. Whenever we go there, she has the biggest smile and enjoys singing and dancing in front of us. Thank you for remembering these people in your prayers. Thanks to your continued prayers and financial support, we are able to go minister to them!
We always start with prayer.
Michael enjoyed playing with this boy!
We met them over a year ago and Luke loves them!
Giving fresh vegetables to people in the temporary housing.
We had a group of college students from Fukuoka that came to help with disaster relief. We sang many songs together in the gathering room. Love seeing these ladies smile!
Categories: Aid for Japan.
The past three months we have seen a lot of action. We are so thankful for the great people who have helped us. The prayers, emails, Skype calls, care packages, and support have helped keep us grounded and going. Thank you!
Below are the links to our May-June Newsletter and for the Disaster Relief Activities Report issued by the Japanese Baptist Convention. We included it not because our pictures are in it but because of the information it offers over the past year’s relief efforts. Please feel free to share the newsletter and report with others as needed. We would love to hear from you!
Categories: Hope for Japan News.
Last Friday we woke at 3:30am to begin the five hour trip to Aomori. It was time for the JBC Tohoku Baptist Retreat. About thirty of us from churches throughout Sendai rode a bus to the retreat. When we arrived at the hotel on the beautiful north shore of Japan, we were welcomed by the believers of the north side of Tohoku area. There were more than 130 attendees. We attended several worship services during the retreat. This year we helped with the children’s program. We took the children to the local aquarium, played games, made crafts, and the children helped lead worship services.
We also took the opportunity to give gift bags to the children including those from Fukushima. The BGCT team left gift bags for us to hand out to children. Pastor Suzuki was overjoyed to receive the duffel bag full of gifts for the children in his church. We pray that the generosity of Texans will bring a smile to the faces of children who receive a gift bag. They still deal will stress and anxiety daily as Fukushima continues to deal with contamination.
As always, we were so glad to see familiar faces and make new friends. Everyone enjoyed the time of fellowship. The churches of Tohoku are blessed to have so many wonderful members. It may be a year before we see many of them again but we know they are working hard to serve. We thank God for the way we were encouraged by others through this retreat.
Prayer time.
The gospel choir from Texas came to sing.
Can you see his love for dolphins???
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord!
The kids singing praise songs.
Luke enjoyed playing the guitar.
Game time! They had a blast!
As always, Luke was loved on the whole time!
Breakfast with kids from Fukushima and Sakata.
Yu led worship on the second day.
Craft time!
Luke made lots of new friends.
Group photo in front of the hotel.
Categories: Hope for Japan News.
Last week we were pleased to meet DeShannon and Rocky Higa. They are a couple who live in Honolulu, Hawaii. They are friends with several of the Hawaii team members who helped last April. When we visited the churches in Honolulu in June, DeShannon and Rocky expressed their desire and God’s call to help us in Japan. We were of course ecstatic of their desire to help. They helped us with our Wednesday night kids English class. They blessed the children through their music. DeShannon played the piano while Rocky sang. They are wonderful musicians and we all enjoyed their music. They also taught the kids a great praise song! Afterward they handed out gift bags for the children. They told us that many friends, family, and church members helped put everything together. Their niece wrote a sweet letter to all the kids.
We are so taken away when people contact us offering to help. They were a huge blessing to the children and we loved hearing their testimonies. They were such a joy to be around and little did we know, DeShannon, is quite the accomplished Jazz musician. They are truly humble and God filled.
DeShannon and Rocky, thank you so much for your willingness to serve. We look forward to serving with you both again very soon. We also pray that more people will hear God’s call to serve with us as the months and years progress. God Bless and the children send their thanks!
Categories: Hope for Japan News.
This video was made by our friends of Oshika Town. The videos within were taken shortly after the 3-11 earthquake and just as the tsunami hit destroying their town. There was a lot of rubble to clear away. They have made great strides in cleaning up the town and have begun to rebuild in certain areas. There is still a lot of work to be done. This is one of the areas we often visit. The people are very gracious and hard working. Credit for this video goes to the good people of Oshika Town.
Categories: Aid for Japan.
We have had a lot of teams come and go over the past year. We are abundantly thankful for our home church in Texas sending such a wonderful group of ladies. Not only did they minister to the kids but they ministered to us as well. Luke often takes a moment to get to know people before warming up to them but he truly took the the team right away. He was sad to see the team leave and so were we.
We are blessed to have served with Martha, Lindsey, and Kristen. We pray you take what you learned and experience here and share it with others back home. We will miss you but we pray we get to see you all very soon! Thank you so much FBCA for sending them to us.
Categories: Aid for Japan, Hope for Japan News.
The FBCA team did a lot to help with our ministry. One place that we took them was Sakata. Sakata is the port town we evacuated to after the March 11 earthquake. There is a mission church that was started by the churches of Northern Japan. The pastor, his wife, and their children have lived there for six long years. I say long because they are ministering in a city that has a very strong Buddhist history. Pastor Fujii and his family have been working hard to reach out the their community.
One of the ways they minister is through their kids program. They open up the church in the afternoons for kids to do homework and learn English. Many of the children that attend are from single parent homes. The majority of them live with their mom and have little to no contact with their dad. As you can imagine this is very hard on the children.
We have felt the need to help the Fujiis with their ministry especially because they are so isolated. We love this sweet family so much! The team from FBCA was a huge help. We got to help with the English programs and spend a lot of time playing games with the children. One of the highlights the team had was visiting the only Christian kindergarten in Sakata. The principal and staff were so gracious and a pleasure to be around.
We continue to pray for the Fujiis and their ministry. Thank you so much FBCA for sending a team to bless the children of Sakata.
On our way to Sakata, we stopped at one of the beaches on the west coast. The girls got to put their feet in the Sea of Japan!
The first class they taught.
Teaching at the Christian kindergarten.
The kids were so sweet. Please pray for this kindergarten! They need more students!
Celebrating Lindsey’s birthday!
The third class they taught.
We all helped the pastor with the church flyers.
Please pray for Pastor Fujii and his family.
On our way back to Sendai, we stopped at this place where some Japanese old movies had been made.
Categories: Hope for Japan News.
