August Newsletter

To Our Friends and Family,

This past month has been one of much needed relaxation as our schedule, for the first time since we arrived back in March, was for the most part open and quiet. This time allowed us to reflect on our past five months here as well as prepare for the upcoming school year. We took advantage of our time off by traveling to Japan’s neighboring country of South Korea, where we spent time resting, exploring, and actually being tourists in another beautiful foreign country. While our time in South Korea was indeed a vacation, it also breathed a fresh perspective on our mission in Japan, and we became eager to return back “home.”

After coming back to Japan, we unpacked our bags only to pack them again, but this time for a shorter trip. As we traveled two hours outside of Tokyo into the mountains of Japan, we were given the opportunity to join about 40 of the Jr. and Sr. High students of Riverside Chapel for their district summer camp. Here, roughly 120 students from 9 different churches within the Tokyo area gathered for three days to fellowship, worship, and grow in the Lord. Despite the language barrier, we were both able to build stronger relationships with some of the youth of our church as we watched them open their hearts to the Lord and develop a deeper connection with Him. It was amazing to see the fervent passion and hungry enthusiasm that many of these students had for God. They absolutely LOVED singing, dancing, and praising God, and it seemed that this was all they wanted to do in the mere three days we were at camp! Furthermore, the speaker for the camp, Jun Sensei, brought a very relevant theme of messages on liberation to the students. Here, he focused on breaking down strongholds of various forms of idolatry within Japanese culture. He spoke truth and freedom into many lives where temple and shrine worship is still very prominent among families of these students. He also stressed the reality of the devil’s presence and his desire to destroy our lives if we do not guard our hearts against his evil spirits. For many students, this seemed to touch the core of their lives. And, we were able to witness an amazing night of release and liberation as the Holy Spirit filled the place and freed many hearts. For both of us, it was an unspeakable blessing to see the future of Japan in that one room so on fire for the Lord with an unparalleled excitement bursting from their hearts.

Despite the fact that August has been a month of vacation for all Japanese students, preparations within the Chi Alpha ministry in Japan remained quite active. In addition to the continuing project of cleaning, renovating, and getting ready the Chi Alpha Student Center, we have also been strongly praying about starting an XA bible study on another prominent university, Hitotsubashi University. Known for its highly intellectual degrees of economics, law, politics and social science, the students that come out of this university are some of the most capable, respected, and influential within the Japanese workforce. Therefore, as we desire to see more Japanese Christians graduate from here, the greater the hope that a bible study will be able to form on this campus. So a team of us, including the one student from this university who had the initial vision to start XA on his campus, had the chance to go and prayer walk throughout the college, believing that the Lord has a mighty plan for Hitotsubashi. Although the logistics of beginning this group poses its challenges, we believe that with this approaching school semester, the Lord will pave the way in what seems like a desert place.

With Chi Alpha ministry on our hearts, recently, Jeremy gave a challenging message at the young adult service, Youth Alive, on how each person has been commissioned to be Christ’s ambassador in various capacities, especially on one’s campus. Exploring this true meaning of “Chi Alpha,” he emphasized the importance of putting their faiths into practical action and not to keep the love of Christ contained within their Christian circles. In a society where many Japanese Christians allow their time to be consumed by tasks solely within the four walls of the church, they often have trouble balancing their schedules to include investing in non-believers. Thus, this type of message demonstrated its effectiveness by urging Japanese Christians to do more than simply pray for their non-believing friends and family, but rather, be active and purposeful in how they pursue and develop these relationships.

As the school year will be resuming once again within the next month, please continue to pray with us for:
• The youth of Riverside Chapel who went to summer camp, that the time spent with the Lord will not simply be a mountaintop experience but that God will continue to work in their lives and keep the fire for Him growing
• XA Student Center, that the time, money, and effort needed to complete this project will be provided, quickly and abundantly
• Hitotsubashi University, that the Lord will open the doors for a bible study to form, that the process to do so will be smooth, and that God will prepare as well as stir the hearts of the students on this college, Christian and non-Christian alike

We pray that as the summer closes for us all, you all find yourselves refreshed, renewed, and replenished by the love and strength of the Lord!

Always,
Jeremy & Kathy