Praying Through May

Uplift John as he grieves the heavenly home going of his dear mother Alma on April 14th. Especially pray for strength as he preaches a Mother’s Day sermon. Thank you for praying for travel safety out west and please continue. Ask God to give us His words as we speak both in public forums and in private conversations. Pray for wisdom and creativity as we seek to get up to full financial support. Pray that…

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May Tour Schedule

May 1-4   ¾ day work, ½ day enjoy the mountains/rest in Colorado. May 4 – visit John’s aunt, travel to Village Church Thornton, Co May 5 – John speak at the men’s breakfast, Elaine speak at the women’s tea May 6 – preach/teach at Village Church also an evening meeting May 7 – meet with pastor at Conifer Community Church to make video for the church May 7-11 – ¾ day work, ½ day enjoy…

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Springing Forward – April

April brings many more of God’s blessings during our Home Assignment. God has been working. Family – Much praise to God for his blessing of our four generation reunion last month. Japan Disaster Response Teams – The first team of the year has been very effective in cleaning houses, gathering people (100 at one meeting), and touching lives with the Hope of Christ. Learning – John was able to gain new insights by attending a…

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HELP – CLOSE THE GAP

We were in a church recently and they asked, “How is your support?” Well, we will need an increase of nearly $11,000 to end the fiscal year on April 30th at 100% support. We need around $900 per month to bring our support level to match budget. Help us deal with these “insufficient funds.” Unless more money comes in by 4/30 this will be the first year in a long time we were under-supported, and…

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Caring Leads to Believing in Christ

This is a great story of one victim of the disaster struggling in his life and how a group of serious Christians can cause him to think about his life. A great story of really sharing Christ, a changed life, and the power of prayer. These are the kinds of relationships our volunteers and our partners are in everyday we minister.   荒木英夫 Hideo Araki – My Story of Hope (English Subtitles) from Jesus.net Japan on…

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Churches Helping Churches

Some of you may be aware of a network called Churches Helping Churches which has been very instrumental in assisting pastors in the Tohoku area with support, retreats, and other ministries to keep them from falling apart or burning out.  They have been partnering with Asian Access and JCGI Network all across the Tohoku area. One of those Japanese pastors cooperating with them is Yoshi Ohari which shares a thank you to all who have…

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Japan & Christ – One Year After

If you have not already you will hear a lot in the news about the recovery efforts after the triple disasters in Japan last March 11th.  Much has been done but this is a 10 year project to rebuild the 86 communities affected in the greatest disaster for Japan since WWII.   From a Christian perspective of missions – Japan has even farther to go. Before 3.11, for the Church of Jesus Christ Tohoku was…

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Video from Friends

This video to us has very familar faces.  Besides the families of victims there are people we worked side-by-side in Urayashiki with Dean Bengston. Some notables in the video are Paul Suzuki, SEND Japan director, Warren Janzen, SEND world director, Jonathan Wilson head of CRASH and a few people we worked with mudding out the Watanbe’s house. You can even catch a photo of our dear friends the Fujinos with Southern Baptist. Scenes are also…

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The Triple Disasters: One Year Later

One year after the triple disasters finds nearly 20,000 dead, 400,000 displaced, over 1 million buildings destroyed, and very little rebuilding. Much of the debris has been removed, equivalent to 120 years of the whole nation’s garbage. Encouragement has come as where Ishinomaki City had 7 churches before the disaster, now it has four more, and counting! Converge Disaster Response ministry is now focusing on long-term help for people and building community. The Samaritan Purse…

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Teams to Arrive in Japan

March will be a busy month with 13 people coming on Converge Worldwide teams. Yas Yoneda, Team Coordinator, along with Craig Nasson from Ludington MI arrive on March 16. A team of 5 from Canada arrives March 23 for two weeks. After Field Council, Asia Director David Jahnke, Nate Jahnke and Chloe Milhous will join the gang working in Ishinomaki. These teams will wrap up their work around April 15th. Pray that they would be…

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