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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!

Sometimes we just need to take some time to acknowledge the ways God has answered prayers, and to praise and thank Him for the things He’s done. Now is a great time to do that.

First of all, we’re so thankful for all of you whom He has drawn into this ministry, particularly to partner with us in prayer, and also for the many of you who also are sending us on through your financial support. Your words of encouragement, and emails, have been a tremendous blessing, that God has often used to sustain us through the difficult task of support raising. Your prayers have often been felt, and God continues to remind us that He hears and answers your prayers on our behalf. We’re grateful that God continues to bless us with more prayer partners, 25 new people have comitted to praying for us this year, bringing the total up to 110 people! We are truly humbled to have so many of you lifting us up before our Father, and asking for His provision.

The past two weeks have been amazing to see God provide. We’ve had 6 new people sign up to support us financially, 2 of our current supporters increased their support, and one new church has commited to supporting. New partnership has been it’s own little miracle, and we’re still just shaking our heads and praising God constantly; in two weeks our monthly support has increased by 6.5%, up to 35%. This is by far the highest increase in that amount of time that we’ve ever had. We’re praying, and hoping that God will provide another 15% over the next two and a half months, and after seing what He has just done, we know it is certainly possible!

Starting tomorrow I’ll begin taking time off of work for three weeks, during which I’m hoping to dedicate 40 hours a week to support raising. Please pray that God will work mightily during these three weeks, and that He will arrange for us to share with many people, and that He will move people’s hearts to join us, all of us, in this ministry to bring His gospel to the people of Japan, and through us, all of us, He will plant new, vibrant, reproducing churches in that country which has rejected Him for so long. Also toward the end of April we’ll be going on a one week trip to Texas to meet with churches and individuals to share about this ministry. Please be praying that we can get all our appointments confirmed, and travel arrangements made.

First off, it was great seeing so many of you at our home church last Sunday as we shared about the needs of the people of Tohoku who were devestated by the Tsunami last year. We’re excited that God is calling us to be part of the next wave of Christians going to the region to share the love of Christ with those who so desperately need it. As Christian relief and aide work draws to a completion, we long to go and build upon the relationships and trust that has been established by our faithful brothers and sisters, in working alongside Japanese beleivers to establish new churches. You have all been instrumental in helping us get to this point. Through your prayers and generosity, almost 1/3 of our monthly support has been promised. Please continue to partner with us in prayer, in giving, and in whatever way God leads, to help take the gospel to Japan.

If you were unable to make it, most of the videos that were shown at the event have been posted to our new Facebook page: Keep Loving Japan. Please go watch them, and like the page so that you can get more videos and news as it becomes available.

Begining next week I’ll be taking off 4 days a week from my job for a three week period in order to dedicate time to support raising. We’re excited about this. It is an answer to one of the first prayer requests that we sent out to you all at the begning of this year, as we were asking God to provide a way for me to spend more time in support raising. Since we started I have never been able to dedicate this much time to the task, so we’re excited to see how God will use it. My Goal is to dedicate 40 hours a week to support raising during each of these three weeks.

Our hope is to be able to meet with:

• Individuals who are willing to hear about our ministry and to consider becoming monthly partners
• Small groups, Bible Studies, Sunday School classes, and desert parties where we can meet new people to share our vision with
• Church missions directors or comittees to build partnerships with local churches
• Current supporters to update them on our progress and direction, and to see if they can introduce us to any of your friends who might be interested in hearing about our ministry.

Please be praying that we will be able to fill my scedule with appointments during this time, that God will expand our network of people we can meet with, and that through all this He will equip and supply us with the financial partnership necessary for us to move to Japan. Pray that we will make substantial progress towards our goal of reaching 50% support by the end of May.

I will be trying to get in touch with some of you who are in the area this week, particularly those of you that we don’t get to see very often. We’d love to be able to share some of the exciting things God has been doing in Japan and how our ministry direction is begining to take shape. We also are in desperate need of meeting new people. If you are part of a Bible Study or Small Group, or Sunday school group that I could come share at for 5 – 10 minutes, that would be a tremendous help. If you know someone who might be interested in hearing what God’s calling us to do, it would be an amazing help and blessing if you could find some way to introduce us.

Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. God is begining to work in some more visible ways. I can’t wait to see what He has in store next, and I’m over joyed that you are all sharing in thos journey with us.

Prayer Requests

1. Pray that this week I’ll be able to get a hold of people and make many, many appointments for next week.
2. That during the next three weeks God would lead many new people to partner with us in prayer and monthly financial giving
3. Pray that we’ll be able to finalize our plans for our trip to Texas in late April, so that we can purchase plane tickets
4. Pray for the pastors and missionaries in Tohoku who are trying to bring hope to people who are still desperately hurting

Praises

1. The service at our church for the 1 year anniversary of the Tsunami went well. We had a wonderful time meeting with many of our supporters and friends, as well as sharing with a few new people.
2. That God has provided the finances for me to be able to take off three weeks from work (largely unpaid) in order to do support raising.
3. We’ve got three new supporters coming on board since the last update! Praise God! We’re now up to 30% of our monthly.
4. We have raised 80% of our one time outgoing costs! This means that we’ve almost got enough raised to cover language school, and moving expenses. Basically, as soon as the monthly budget is promised, we’ll be all set to move over to Japan!

This week I’d like to ask you to be praying for God to give us direction as to where He wants us to serve once we go to Japan. Almost a year ago the Tohoku region of Japan was devestated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, followed by a massive tsunami. As Tomo and I watched the events unfold, we began praying about how we could help those who were effected by it. As time went on, we watched in awe as God began to turn what started as a horrendous nightmare, into a great out pouring of His love, as Christians from Japan and around the world flooded into the Tohoku area to bring food, supplies, aide and above all hope. Before the tsunami hit, Tohoku was among the least reached areas in all of Japan (itself one of the least reached countries in the world). The area is dotted with hundreds of small, tight knit communities that proved to be very resistant to the message of the gospel, and somewhat distrustful of outsiders. Yet in the wake of thousands of Christians coming to their aide, many of these people and communities have a totally different perspective on Christianity. Perhaps even more importantly, a number of Japanese churches have become energized, and are building lasting relationships upon the foundation of love and aide, and are now seeking to plant new churches in these towns, many of which have never had a Christian church within their borders.

It is an incredible opportunity to bring hope to those who are suffering, and share the love of God with the lost, to introduce Japanese who have lost everything to a savior who offers an eternal inheritance that can never be taken from them.

SEND missionaries have been involved in helping with relief efforts from the start, and just in the last week SEND Japan rented a large house just outside Sendai, the largest city in Tohoku, in order to establish a new base of missionary operations. This is the first time in decades that SEND has entered into a new area of ministry outside of the Tokyo area, so it is a large step of faith, and to us is incredibly exciting. However as of now only a few missionaries are free to move into Tohoku to start this new church planting ministry. We are willing to go and be a part of the team that pioneers this new field, if God enables and directs. Please be praying that if this is His will He would send us soon, and that this unprecedented opportunity to take the gospel to Tohoku will not be missed.

Prayer Requests

1. That God provides enough monthly financial partners to cover 50% of our support by the end of May. This is our biggest one right now, if we are unable to reach this goal we will have to put off our departure for another year.
2. I got two referals this past week that I need to follow up on. Also, so far I don’t have any appointments this week, so I need to try to get at least one. Please be praying that God will give me someone to share with about Japan this week, perhaps one of the two people I have been given to contact.
3. Pray that God will provide more referals of people who might be interested in hearing about our ministry and joining us as regular financial partners.
4. Pray for SEND Japan missionaries Dave and Eileen Barkman, who are the first to move to Tohoku to establish the SEND base in the region. They will be working with a local pastor to start planting house churches in various villages in the area, and also facilitating teams that will come on a short term basis. Also pray for my brother and his wife Maki (Tomo’s sister), they are also with SEND, raising support to go back for their second term, and currently one of the four missionary families planning to minister in Tohoku.

Praises

1. I officially got approval from my work to take a month off in order to do full time support raising. It looks like I’ll be taking off three weeks starting half way through March, and then working for two weeks before taking another week off to go to Texas. Pray that God will raise up a large portion of our support during this time.
2. Our Texas trip is starting to come together. Praise God that we now have three contacts willing to help us out, which means that we will definately be going. There is one more family I need to get a hold of that hopefully will also be able to connect us with their church. Pray that we’ll be able to work out the details.

This is our second weekly prayer update, and if you’re getting this one, then you’re on the list to get them every week. If you’re cutting back on your email and don’t want to receive emails so frequently, that’s totally fine, just let us know, and we’ll take you off. You can still receive our bi-monthly newsletters. For those of you who have committed to praying for us on a weekly basis this year, we can’t thank you enough! We’re so excited to see how God answers your prayers this year, and the things that He will accomplish.

This week Tomo and I talked a lot about our goals for getting to Japan, and things that we need to do to reach those goals. As I mentioned last week, the first thing we felt needed to happen was prayer, which is the reason for this weekly update. But there are other things that we need to do in order to get there, so I’d like to share them with all of you so that you can be praying for them. The basic stages that we’re looking at would be:

1. To reach 50% monthly support by the end of may to attend SEND’s Member orientation

2. To reach 75% at which time I’ll be able to quit my job in order to do full time support raising to raise the remaining support needed

3. Reach 100% by either December 2012 or March 2013 in order to arrive in Japan in time to start language school

The first big goal that we have is to reach 50% of our support by the end of May. This will enable us to go to SEND’s Member Orientation Program, which is mandatory before departing for the field, and only held once a year in the US. We tried to attend last year but were unable to get the required support. This year we’ve actually got a little further to go than we did last year because our budget increased with the birth of Titus, and the dollar hitting record lows against the yen. This means that it is even more expensive to send missionaries from the US to Japan, yet still absolutely necessary for the health of the church and spread of the Gospel in Japan. We’re still trying to prayerfully set a realistic target departure date. It’s tough to gauge how support raising will go this year, but we’re considering shooting for December 2012 (which would be ambitious) or March 2013, so that we could arrive before the start of the Japanese school year and I could start Language School right away.

This week I met with a guy who is interested in supporting us. He is going to come by some evening next week to hear more about what we’re doing. Pray that God will move in His heart to join our support team.

This week I need to make some appointments and follow up with people who have expressed interest in supporting us. We’re trying to get one appointment a week (still easing into things a bit, as life can get a bit unpredictable with a two month old baby).

We’ve got some off the wall ideas for getting up to 50% support by the end of May which I’ll share in next week’s prayer update. We’re working out the details now, but I’m excited and about some of the things that are starting to come together.

We are praying that 2012 will be the year that God finally brings us to Japan, and as we look ahead to this new year, we would like to ask you to join us by praying for us on a weekly basis.

2011 was an exciting and challenging year. We entered the year with both of us working part time, in the most financially stable state we’d been in since we first got married, and able to dedicate a lot of time toward support raising. We were excited and hopeful that we would make some significant progress towards going to Japan. However, God apparently, had some other lessons and blessings (and still has some more) in store for us before bringing us there. We found out Tomo was pregnant in March which meant that not long after she had to quit her job, I had to go back to working full time, and we prepared for the joyous arrival of our son Titus on November 27. The last two months have passed in a blur of sleeplessness and constant smiling over how cute the little guy is. Overall it felt like the entire year happened in the midst of a whirlwind.

Now we’re starting to look towards the new year, again hoping and praying that God will send us to Japan, and planning out how we can be faithful to this calling, a calling that I feel only more strongly about as this support raising time goes by. Many have asked if I have considered that the long and difficult road of support raising may be a sign that God has a different path in store, but I have come to the opposite conclusion. It seems to me that virtually every servant of God in the scriptures was faced with long and difficult challenges. It would seem that most of the time God’s will is to put us through these trials to teach us and to strengthen us. I think that the easy path is rarely the one that God calls us to, but often the one we are tempted to choose for ourselves. So we press on, trusting, learning, wrestling, praying and seeking to serve God as missionaries in Japan, that one day through us, God would glorify Himself by saving the souls of Japanese who have never heard of His love for them.

We’re just starting to get our feet back underneath us, just starting to be able to establish something that resembles a routine since we’ve become new parents. We have basically had to take a few months off from support raising, but we’re now looking to start up again. And we want to start with prayer, and continue in it, which is where you come in, once again. I believe that prayer is absolutely essential to us getting to Japan, and if we are to raise the remainder of our support this year, we’ll need lots of it. The first thing we want to establish this year in our support raising journey is a weekly prayer update. If you are a financial supporter, or a prayer partner, you will automatically begin receiving it, but if you need to cut back on the email you receive, just reply and let us know, and we’ll take you off of the list. If you are not a prayer partner or financial supporter (or don’t know if you are!) and want to pray for us this year, fill in your email address below (and leave a comment!).

Finally, we would love to have more communication with all of you, and would love to be praying for anything that you are going through. Please feel free to respond to any of these prayer updates with prayer and praise requests of your own. If you have something you want everyone to pray for, let us know and we’ll include it in the next prayer update email (but not on this public blog).

Thank you all so much for your prayers!

On November 27, 2011 our son, Titus Kenji Robison was born. He weighed 8lbs 3ozs, and was 20.5 in long. We are praising God for a safe and healthy delivery, both Titus and Tomo are doing great. We pray that Titus will grow to know and love Christ Jesus, and that he will grow to serve God diligently.

It was originally our hope to be in Japan by the time Titus was born, however as always God’s plans are higher than ours. We are looking forward to moving to Japan sometime in the Summer or Fall of 2012 to begin missionary work with SEND International as a family.

Thank you for all your prayers and support!

We just finished sending our our January 2011 Newsletter.  To start the year off, I’ve written an article outlining our plans for 2011, while Tomo has taken a look back at 2010. If you’d like to receive it, just leave a comment and we’ll add you to our list.

January 2011 Newsletter