Answers to Prayer in July

In our last prayer update we asked for prayer for my children’s message on July 13, and the English Cafe last Friday. We were blessed to see God’s hand in both of these. On July 13th I presented a 10 minute gospel message in Japanese at a children’s Ice Cream Party our church hosted. I was fairly nervous as it was my first time doing anything like that. My prayer before I spoke was simply that I would be understood. I didn’t have high hopes that I would be able to use clever phrases or even that I would be able to avoid stumbling over words, but my hope and prayer was that I would be able to explain why Christ came to die for us, and that those in attendance would be able to understand what I said. I wound up relying far more heavily on my notes than I wanted, and basically read large portions of my talk, while pushing through some pretty rough portions, but when all was said and done two church ladies came up to me afterwards and told me that it was very easy to understand what I said. Praise God.

We took over as hosts for our church’s monthly English Teaching Outreach in May. In June we had a very small turn out with no people from outside the church attending, so we were a little discouraged and concerned about the future of the event. Another concern that we’d noticed is that our normal program seemed to be too advanced for most of the people who attended. Initially the event was geared more towards allowing Japanese who are studying English to practice their conversation skills with native speakers, however over the last six months or so the people who have come were at a lower level of English ability, and were having a hard time following the program.

We asked for prayers for the July English Cafe, which was held this past Friday and were excited to see a large turnout of people from the church, as well as one non believer who has attended once in the past. With help from a team from Singapore, and a few other church members, we reworked the program a little to make it easier for people of any level of English to participate, and it seemed as though it really worked well. Everyone who showed up was able to participate, enjoy the games and activities, and seemed to be learning a lot. I was able to spend a good 20 minutes talking with the non-believer in attendance, and he really seemed to appreciate being able to practice speaking with someone willing to let him go at his own pace and help him along. At the end of the night he said he was looking forward to attending our next event in August. Praise God!

In the last few weeks since our last update, I was also able to visit the coast with a team from our church to help out at an event put on by a fellow missionary serving in partnership with the Iwate 3.11 Church Network. After three and a half years survivors are finally beginning to move into permanent housing. While this is a huge step for many of them, they now face challenges of really reestablishing their lives in new communities. Pray that the friendships that they have built with each other, and with Christian workers will be able to persist through this change. In the past month I’ve heard stories of five survivors who have given their lives to Christ, which is a huge praise. Pray that they will grow in their new faith in the midst of a very difficult place to be a Christian, and that they will be the first fruits of many more whom God will save in the coming months and years as Christians continue to support, love and share with people in these communities.