Day: December 4, 2013

As in America, here in Japan Christmas time presents one of the best opportunities to talk to people about Christ. In recent years Christmas has become a very popular holiday in Japan, thanks to the tireless work of Japanese department stores trying to capitalize on America’s largest retail holiday of the year. However, as you can imagine, very few people here actually celebrate Christ’s birth during Christmas time, or even know that that’s what Christmas is actually about.

Christmas in Japan is traditionally celebrated with such festive customs as eating Kentucky Fried Chicken (not even joking here, KFC somehow managed to convince the whole country that fried chicken dinner is what you’re supposed to eat on Christmas) giving Christmas cakes (white cakes with straberries on them) and asking out that special someone for a romantic Christmas Eve date (hopefully not to KFC). There are Christmas trees, snow men and Santa Clauses everywhere. Pray that this Christmas people in our city, and on the coast will find their way to one of the many Christian Christmas events that are happening this year. For example:

Today the ladies group at our church had their annual wreath making event. In the past this has been an event for church ladies only, as they met to make wreaths to decorate the church during the holidays. But this year it was decided to turn it into an outreach event and invite non believers to come participate. Tomo and Titus are still over there now right now. Our church will be hosting a Christmas Carol service in a couple of weeks, please pray that new people will come to here and sing about the birth of Christ, and also for a number of believers who have stopped attending church for one reason or another, that they will be drawn back to their church family during this holiday season.

On December 20th we’ll be having a Christmas English Cafe at the Church. We just had a thanksgiving themed one a few weeks back, and once again had a number of new people come to the church to practice their English. For the Christmas one I’ll be presenting the Bible message, please be praying that I’ll be able to present the Christmas story in a way that reaches the hearts of the Japanese in attendance, and that God will work to bring them to Himself.

Language school has been taking up most of my time, which means that most of Tomo’s time is taken up by Titus and helping out with Church Christmas events. All of us are getting a little tired I think, but things will only get busier as Christmas approaches, I had a grammar test today (didn’t do so great), I have a Kanji test on Monday, and then final exams the week after next. Tomo is helping to organize a ladies Christmas choir, and playing piano this Sunday. She hasn’t played this much piano since high-school, so it’s been a struggle for her to keep up and get enough practice time in, but she’s been doing a great job and been a huge blessing by stepping up to fill a hole in our churches worship rotation. Please pray for strength for us during this hectic time.

Thankfully we’re scheduled to take a vacation right after Christmas where we plan to go up to the mountains and basically do nothing for a week. It’s going to be glorious. We look forward to spending time as a family, spending time in the Word and prayer, soak in hot springs and do a little snow boarding. This will be the first time since we got married that we’ve taken a vacation solely for the purpose of taking a vacation.

Language school remains our primary ministry assignment during this time, and that means that I’ve been spending most of my time studying Japanese. Since the joining the group lessons in October my class schedule has shifted from the afternoons to the mornings. On a typical day I’ll ride my bike 15 minutes to get to school by 8:45am when class starts, and spend the next 4 hours in class. After that I’ll eat lunch at school (sometimes Tomo and Titus come to join me if they’re free), and then spend the rest of the afternoon at school studying, till 5pm. I have my second Japanese Language Proficiency Test on December 1. I’ll be taking the N4 level test, which is the second of 5 (N1 being the most difficult). My goal is to pass at least N2 by the end of language study, which is commonly what missions organizations expect missionaries to be at before beginning full-time ministry assignment.

We have a Thanksgiving themed English Cafe on Friday 11/29, where I’ll be giving a short talk about Thanksgiving in America. Tomo has is building a friendship with a young, non-Christian mother who attended the last two English Cafe’s with her family (her son is 1 years old). This past week the lady came to a church event to bake pound cakes to be served to people living in temporary housing on the coast as part of Tomo’s parent’s ministry to the survivors. Please be praying for this family, that as they get to know people us and people at our church, that they would be drawn to our Savior.

Please also keep Tomo’s mother in prayer. She has been struggling with a chronic lung condition that has become very severe over the last year. She was starting to do better, but then got a cold that forced her to check into the hospital for the third time this year. She has now gone down to Tokyo (about 6 hours south of where she lives) to see a specialist and will likely be in a hospital in Tokyo for a month. Please pray for healing, and for physical, emotional and spiritual strength through all of this.