We’re praising God for His provision and for the doors He’s opened this year. Starting today I’m reducing my hours at the JESUS Film Project to one day a week in order to engage in full time partner development and support raising. This is a big step, and in a way marks our transition into full time ministry. We’re tremendously excited to be able to take this step of faith, and extremely grateful to our partners who are enabling us to serve on their behalf.
Now begins a 5 month period of meeting with people, strengthening relationships with supporting churches, and seeking out the remaining partners that God will connect us with to complete this team that He is arranging in order to share His love with individuals who have never heard of Him, establish new churches in places that have never had one, and bring about further fulfillment of the great commission. We stand in awe of what He has accomplished thus far, and look forward with great anticipation to what lies ahead.
A week ago we mailed out packets with transition information to all of our current monthly supporters, many of you have already received them, and if you haven’t, you should get one soon. If you haven’t gotten one by next week, please let us know your address, as we may have an old one on file. Many of you who are not monthly supporters send in special gifts whenever the Lord blesses you to be able to do so, and some of you have expressed interest in becoming monthly supporters as soon as God enables you to be able to do so. We’ll be mailing out packets to all of our prayer partners next week with information on how to send special gifts or become monthly partners now that we’ve transitioned to JEMS. Also we want to make sure that all of you get our new prayer card. If you haven’t ever received anything in the mail from us, there’s a good chance we don’t have your address, so if you would like to get this packet, please respond and let us know where to send it!
During this time of full time support raising, we’ll be living off of the gifts that our monthly supporters have already faithfully given (currently these funds are still in an account with SEND, but the plan is for them to be transferred mid November, to JEMS). These gifts have been raised for the propose of covering our outgoing expenses, including airfare, moving costs, rental deposit, things needed to set up a home in Japan, a vehicle, and two years of tuition for language school, and three months Japanese salary as a reserve fund. Part of this fund also included six months of salary for use in the US for full time support raising. Through your incredible generosity, God has provided nearly all the funds needed to cover these expenses, we only need about $3,000 more to cover all these needs, and as many of you have been giving regularly, we anticipate our outgoing fund to be filled up on its own within the next few months.
If God has enabled you, we ask that you would prayerfully consider either beginning to give on a monthly basis now, or continuing to give monthly what you have, as we continue to prepare depart for Japan. Our hope is to be able to have a little extra in reserve so that once we are in Japan we’ll have a little padding in case giving fluctuates. If our reserve fund dips below three months salary while we are in Japan, JEMS requires that we reduce our ministry activities and focus on support raising so that we will not have to leave Japan and come home early. Extra funds in our account also will give us the flexibility to to fund ministry projects that may come up.
Thank you so much for your prayers. It’s been amazing to watch God answer them in so many ways this past year, and we can’t wait to see what He does in the coming months!
Please be praying for us as we start full time support raising next week. Pray that we’ll use the time wisely, that God will direct our steps and that He will provide the remaining funds needed for us to depart. We’re still trying to figure out what our Japanese taxes will be, but our best guess right now is that we still will need an additional $2,500 in monthly support in order to depart.