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.
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.
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.
We are sorry we could not update our blog sooner. We just got internet at our house and we will try to update it more often! We are doing great and enjoying getting to know people here. We still have a lot to do around the house, but we are ready to welcome our baby boy anytime!
We are blessed to be a part of two wonderful churches! One is our sending church in Arlington (we miss you all!), and the other one is in Sendai, Japan. Yu grew up in this church after several believers including her parents planted this church. Even though it is a small church, everyone knows everyone and it’s like having a big family! The members of this church have been praying for us for a long time. Their previous pastor left in the summer of 2009, and they have faced many challenges. However, they kept serving the Lord and the community faithfully. When the assistant pastor (who is in his 70s) handed us the letter to our church in Arlington, we were amazed because we had not shared with him about our desire to come to serve in Japan. In his letter, he wrote that one of the biggest needs in this area is the student ministry. Again, we were surprised because that was what we had been wanting to do in Japan. Many Japanese young people are living without hope. The need to reach out to them is so great. We know that it was all in God’s plan and we are excited to be a part of this!
As soon as we arrived, the members of the church welcomed us warmly. We shared our heart and vision with them, and many people came to tell us that they had been praying for us. Some of them said they want to help with the student ministry which is an answer to our prayers. We know we can’t do this alone. We know the importance of being a part of the church body and we are thankful that God has given us this church. We are planning to visit the local churches to get to know them and to see the possibilities to partner with them. In April, we are going to start visiting the local universities to meet students.
Thank you so much for your prayers! 
Categories: Hope for Japan News.
We made it safely to Japan! Thank you for praying for our safe travel. Everything went smoothly and God provided everything we needed! Yu was able to use 4 seats to lie down. All the luggage made it safely as well. Praise God! God has filled our hearts with peace and joy as we landed, and we are excited to be in His will.
As we left Texas, we prayed for this new journey. We thanked God for all of you who have touched our lives and supported us in so many wonderful ways. We are so thankful for this opportunity and we can’t wait to share all the amazing things that God does in Japan. We miss you all and would love to keep in touch. We want to know what is happening in your life and how we can pray for you. Please write us anytime! Please continue to pray for us as we adjust to our new life here. We have a little over a month until our baby comes and we have a lot to do! Thank you again for lifting us up. We love you all!
Categories: Hope for Japan News.
