The average person in Japan has never set foot inside a church building, and very likely has never had a conversation with a Christian. We try to help change that through various outreach events at our church. In October we hosted two English Cafes. In addition to our normally scheduled Friday evening event, we also held a Tuesday afternoon English Cafe. On Friday evenings we normally get a lot of college students attending. However at the Tuesday event we were encouraged to see a different demographic, primarily made up of retired people and young mothers.
Please be praying for those who attended, that God would speak to their hearts, and bring them back again and again so that we can build friendships and have further opportunities share Christ.
Ofunato Harbor at dawn.
I had an overnight trip to Ofunato, a coastal city that is both home to our sister church, and one of the 3.11 Network volunteer bases. There are still many people living in temporary housing, and through the 3.11 Network staff and volunteers, programs are held to encourage these residents as they slowly work towards moving into permanent housing and rebuilding a normal life. For the last three year the 3.11 Network has rented a home to house staff and teams working at the various temporary housing parks scattered throughout the city, however in October the owner of the house needed it back, so I went to help with the move.
Rina, the remaining 3.11 staff worker in Ofunato was given permission to move into one of the open units at the largest temporary housing unit. This is both a blessing and a a bit of a trial. It’s a blessing that she is now able to live right in the midst of the people the network is seeking to help, but it is a more difficult situation to live in, and the unit is very small which limits the size of teams that can be hosted. Please pray for her and the ministry to the residents of Ofunato.
Over 500 people gathered for the national CPI conference.
We also had a wonderful time attending the national Japan Church Planting Institute national conference. Over 500 missionaries and pastors gathered to pray, encourage one another and learn how to multiply churches in Japan. As we are gearing up to be involved in Church Planting after my internship is complete, it was incredibly helpful to start thinking through the ways in which evangelism and discipleship drive the church planting process. Additionaly we gained a clearer sense of the things we wanted to learn during the internship phase at MBBC, and came away really praising God for that. The kids survive the long car ride, and we got to meet many missionary friends from around Japan that we rarely get to see. It was a great blessing.