New Baby

We’re praising God for the safe delivery of our third child, Silas 新(Arata) Robison. He’s named after the apostle Paul’s partner in his second missionary journey and his middle name, Arata, means “New” in Japanese, and reminds of us the new life that we have through Christ.

The delivery was very smooth, and very quick, Silas was born less than three hours after we arrived at the hospital. Tomo has been recovering well, but we’re all adjusting to having three little kids in the house, and new sleep schedules (all of us are getting less of it). Thankfully I was able to take about two weeks off to help Tomo around the house and watch the kids. Titus and Felicity seem to be quite taken with their baby brother and fight over who gets to hold him every day.

Ministry

Last month I started meeting with a new believer at our church to study the Bible together one on one. This is my first time being able to do something like this in Japanese, and while it’s difficult, we both seem to be benefiting from the fellowship and the chance to talk about God’s word as we read through the book of Romans.

Recently our church has been having more English speaking visitors, and the Monthly English Bible Study has been growing. Many of the participants are English teachers who are in Japan for a period of one to three years, and are eager to serve and help out in the church, and have been a large source of blessing.

I’m preparing to preach again on April 30th, and as usual this requires a lot of time. I need to study the passage, outline and summarize my sermon in English, and then write it in Japanese. After that’s done I’ll get someone to check it and correct the inevitable mountain of grammatical errors, and then spend at least a week practicing it so I don’t stumble over the words. Please pray that I can prepare well, and that the sermon will be an encouragement to those who hear. I’ll be preaching from Philippians 2:1-11, focusing on the first two verses:

 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.