Before I get started, I wanted to point you to our Facebook page where I’ve posted a video from Pastor Kondo, who pastors a church in Iwate prefecture in Tohoku. He is one of the Pastors that we are praying about working with when we get to Japan, and is a friend of Tomo’s. You can watch his 3 minute video here: http://www.facebook.com/keeplovingjapan while you’re there, be sure to like our page to get updates on Facebook about other things God is doing in Japan.
Last week was the first of three weeks that I’ll be taking time off of work to do support raising. Please continue to be in prayer that God will use these next two weeks to provide many new partners and new monthly commitments.
Last week we had five support appointments, through which God provided another 1% of monthly financial support, bringing us up to 36%! We also visited two churches, and during one afternoon of calling, I had a chance to share in great detail with the associate Pastor of a church in Huntington Beach, who was excited to hear about our ministry as their church had recently decided to try to do more to support missions. Please pray that God will open doors for this church to be able to support us, they were to have an elders meeting on the evening I called, and the associate Pastor said he would share about our ministry with the elders.
So far this week there are thee family’s that have expressed interest in hearing about our ministry, but they’ve been really busy and it’s been difficult to find a time when we can meet. Please pray that we’ll be able to meet with them this week. Please also pray that God will open doors for us to share in small group settings so that we can meet new people and follow up with individual appointments
Please also be praying for our Texas trip next month. We’re getting ready to purchase plane tickets, but are still trying to schedule exactly which churches and individuals we’ll meet with. We have many contacts and invitations, however very few actual appointments as of yet; it would be nice to have a clearer picture of who we’ll be able to share with prior to purchasing tickets, but this may be one of those situations where we’ll just have to take a step of faith.
We continue to praise God for the momentum He’s building towards sending Christians long term, full time to Japan. In recent months we’ve not only seen God begin to accelerate His provision for our ministry, but also fellow SEND missionaries, including my brother and his family. We long to be there soon, and your prayers have played a big part in getting us this far. Please pray that God will provide an additional 14% during the next 10 weeks!