This was a busy day filled with many exciting events! We took the team to Sakata Mission Church and Pastor Fujii and his wife welcomed us warmly. Pastor Fujii came to Sakata after serving at one of the biggest churches in Tokyo 6 years ago. Ever since then, he and his family have been serving God faithfully even though this journey was not always easy.
They were so thankful for this special gift from FBCA.
Pastor Fujii took us to the kindergarten where his son goes. It’s actually the only Christian kindergarten in this city. The team did a great job teaching English, doing crafts, and loving on all the children!
Group photo!
The principal shared the kindergarten’s needs and prayer requests with us and we prayed with her.
Please pray these precious children will know how much God loves them!
In the afternoon, the team taught the English class at the mission church.
Kids learning the names of the animals.
The kids heard the story of Noah and God’s promise.
We ended our day with dinner and fellowship with the church members. The young guy we had met at the restaurant joined us.
We have a very special prayer request to be lifted up. We have been approached by one of the local pastors to help begin a new ministry for his church. The church is working to start English classes and English worship for their church. The ministry would be teaching English to its members and the local students. Then after English class, we will have a time of worship. The worship service would be in Japanese and English.
Many church members are willing to help (which is an answer to our prayers!) and some of them are the ones we had met at the youth retreat last month. We are very excited as this is an opportunity to meet many of the college and high school students in the area. There are a lot of logistics to smooth out as we work to hammer out the details. Please pray for unity within the team as we help coordinate this new task and also pray for the people who will be attending the English classes and worship worship as many of them may be unbelievers. Thank you all for your prayers and support. We could not be here serving if not for your help and God’s grace.
As I checked our draft box, I realized that I had not published some of the posts. I know it is late but I wanted to publish before 2012 comes! Here are some updates on our ministry in the fall.
We took our youth group to go bowling. Many of you have been praying for these two sisters on the right. They lost their grandparents in the tsunami and have been having a difficult time. It was great to see their smile again.
We took them to Michael’s favorite restaurant. Even though our group is still small, we always have so much fun together!
When we had a team from Bangkok, we hosted a youth game night. As you can see, they loved it!!!
We also wrote encouraging notes on the heating cans for people in the temporary housing. The Bangkok team delivered them and many people loved it!
This fall, we started teaching English at our church. We have been having 20-30 kids every week!
We always end our time with a short worship service. Lots of the kids are from non-Christian families. Some of them started coming to the Sunday School.
Mr. Tony taught some English praise songs! It reminded me of my childhood since he had taught me the same songs when I was a child!
The youth learned English through games, songs, and chants! It was great to see them interact with these English speakers!
We hosted the first ever fall festival at our church. Both teams from Bangkok and Hawaii helped and our FBCA family helped by sending us American candies and party supplies! Thank you all!
In the beginning, all the kids who had come to the English class performed in front of their parents.
This class learned the colors and animals. They did a great job!
Bean bag toss!
Pumpkin bowling!
Ring toss!
Fishing game!
Face painting!
Everyone enjoyed American taste such as hot dogs, chili, spam musubi (from Hawaii), popcorn, cookies, candies, and cool aids! One girl said who had a cool-aid for the first time said it tasted like “America”!!!
It was great to meet dads of the kids who come to our English class. Michael hopes to get to know them better!
Michael and the boys. We ordered these pumpkins from the northern island of Japan. The kids loved touching them!
We had a great time with everyone. God has opened so many doors for us to meet and minister to the youth and kids in our community. We look forward to building relationships and sharing God’s love with them and their families.
