A Busy Season (March Prayer Letter)
Hi everyone,
Thank you for your prayers over the past month! This prayer letter is a bit later than usual because we were busy with travelling in the end of February and early March.
First we spent a few days in Tokyo to attend JEMA Connect, an inter-denominational missionary event. We’re thankful that we were able to make some good connections and re-connections while we were there, and get the word out about what we’re doing with Drawbridge Creations.
After just a couple of days at home, we hit the road again and visiting our old stomping grounds in Nagoya. It was great to reconnect with our church family at Immanuel Nagoya Church and with Yoko’s fellow Christ Bible Seminary alumni. We were also able to promote our ministry a little while we were there, and even briefly meet some former English students.
Over the next month our busy season continues: I’m planning on making a solo trip to Tokyo during the week of March 19, for the annual conference of the Immanuel Church denomination, GP’s partners here in Japan. I’m looking forward to doing more networking and promotion, as well as just catching up with ministry friends, as this is my first time attending annual conference in-person since 2019. Please pray not only for me, but also for the pastors and leaders in attendance as important issues are discussed and this year’s appointments are announced.
Then, from the 31st through the first week of April, Yoko and I will be returning to Tokyo yet again to host Global Partners’ Asia-Pacific area leadership team as they meet with each other and with Japanese church leaders. Please pray for this important time of discussion, prayer and seeking God’s vision for GP’s ministries in Japan and the rest of the region.
We’d also appreciate your continuing prayers for our health and safety, especially during this busy season.
Thank you, as always, for your prayers and partnership with us for Jesus and Japan!
– Robin (and Yoko)
February Things (Robin & Yoko prayer letter)
Hi everyone,
Thank you for your prayers! Here are a few things we’d like you to know about this month:
Things we’re thankful for right now:
- Some new unexpected support partners.
- Some new church ministry opportunities on the calendar for the coming months.
- We’ve got a visitor from Global Partners HQ coming here Feb. 21-23.
- We’ve connected with a couple of new artists to work with us on some of this year’s Waypoints manga.
Things we’d love for you to pray about:
- Please pray for us and our collaborators as we prepare stories, art and blog content for season 3 of Waypoints, our current Drawbridge Creations online manga series.
- Please pray for our health and safety as we do some traveling later this month and in early March…
- We’re planning to be in Tokyo from Feb. 27 to Mar. 1 for JEMA Connect — a time of connecting with missionaries from various organizations working all over Japan. Pray that this can be a good time of networking and promotion for Drawbridge Creations.
- We’re scheduled to visit Nagoya from Mar. 4 to 7, to reconnect with our former church and other friends, and to do some more promoting of our ministry. Please pray for good networking during this trip as well.
Thank you again for your interest, prayer and support for the mission in Japan!
Robin & Yoko
Happy New Year from Japan!
Hope your new year is off to a good start!
2023 is shaping up to be a big year for us. It looks like there will be more travel, visitors, in-person events and meetings than the last couple of years. We’re also hoping to build better relationships with local churches and the community here in Ishikawa. And of course, our online manga ministry, Drawbridge Creations, is still a big focus for us. Waypoints is currently on a short break as we work with our collaborators to prepare for season 3, which is scheduled to start in April.
Please pray with us as we plan, prepare and seek God’s direction for the coming months.
Thank you as always for your continuing prayers and partnership!
Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas from Japan!
Hi everyone,
Thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement!
We safely arrived back in Japan on December 2 after three months of midterm partnership development in Canada. We’re thankful for God’s grace and protection during our travels and ministry, and that we could connect with many of you while we were there. We appreciate your partnership throughout 2022, and look forward to sharing our missions journey with you in 2023.
Merry Christmas and happy New Year!
– Robin & Yoko in Japan
In case you missed it, click HERE for our latest newsletter.
Year-End Giving
Please consider supporting Drawbridge Creations by helping us reach our $10,000 US year-end goal.
Click HERE for giving info.
Our Fall-Winter Newsletter
Hi everyone!
Hope you’re staying warm! Please check out our JapanLog fall-winter newsletter in which we talk about our time in Canada, our return to Japan, and what’s next in 2023:
Get the PDF HERE!
Thank you for your prayers and partnership!
– Robin & Yoko
November News From Yoko
Dear Partners,
Time flies! Quickly 2/3 of our time in Canada has passed. October was a busier month for us, so it was a little challenging health wise. But thankfully we have been blessed through reconnecting with partners and meeting new people. We have received a lot of encouragement.
One of the highlights of October was an arts-related workshop at Kingswood University.
Thank you for your prayers for this opportunity! We could have great experience! It was about visual story telling with comics and we did some fun collaborative art exercises too. It was a small group and a first opportunity for us, but everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. We have been wondering if this kind of workshop is possible as an in-person ministry of Drawbridge Creations in Japan. This experience helped us to see more possibility.
Here are some prayer points for November:
1. We are scheduled for four more appointments with churches this month. Please pray for God to bless these opportunities and that we will have a good finish of midterm partnership development.
2. We will go back to Japan on December 1st. Please pray for smooth and safe travel back to Japan.
3. We need God’s wisdom as we figure out how to effectively move forward with Drawbridge Creations. Please pray for God’s leading and provision for this ministry.
Thank you!
– Yoko (and Robin)
Year-End Giving
Please consider supporting Drawbridge Creations
by helping us reach our $10,000 US year-end goal.
Click HERE for giving info.
October Update
Canadian Adventures Continue…
We are already 1/3 of the way through our time in Canada. Since our previous prayer letter, we have made ministry visits to five churches and connected with several pastors and partners along the way. We’re grateful for safe travels, encouraging feedback, good conversations and new connections. We’ve also been able to spend time with family, which is also a blessing.
Thank you for your prayers!
Please continue to pray for our travels and ministry in Canada. In October, not only are we speaking at churches, but connecting with university students as well — Houghton tonight (online) and Kingswood (in person) on October 22. Prayers especially would be appreciated for the Kingswood visit, as we’ll not only be connecting with missions-minded students, but leading an arts-related workshop for the first time ever.
We’d also appreciate your prayers regarding financial partnerships. We are in a pretty good place, and thankful for all our partners, but do have some needs. If you’re interested in giving, please see below for details.
Ways to Partner Financially:
1. We need people who can give regularly to our missionary support fund. We are close but not quite at 100%. If you’re not already partnering and would like to, or if you’ve supported in the past and would like to recommit, please let us know.
2. Give to the Drawbridge Creations project fund — If you’d like to make a one-time year-end donation, this would be where we’d ask you to give. Click HERE for giving info.
Whether you pray or give or both, thank you for your partnership!
Konnichiwa from Canada!
Thank you for your prayers during our transition to Canada!
We arrived safely in New Brunswick, late at night on August 23, after a long journey from Japan. International travel is a bit more complicated these days, but thankfully things went pretty smoothly for us, and we’re both in good health, which is ananswer to prayer. After getting here, we enjoyed a nice week off catching up on sleep and catching up with family — that’s us with the senior Whites above.
This past Sunday (Aug. 4) we kicked off our short partnership development tour with a visit to Faith Baptist Church in New Maryland, NB, where we shared an update on our ministry and life in Japan. We’re thankful for a warm welcome and a good start to reconnecting with our Canadian partner churches.
Here’s our Schedule for the Fall:
- 9/11 Crosspoint Church, Fredericton NB
- 9/18 AM Brazil Lake Wesleyan, NS
- 9/18 PM West Head Wesleyan, NS
- 9/25 First Wesleyan, Saint John NB
- 10/2 Perth-Andover Wesleyan, NB
- 10/16 Trinity Wesleyan, Florenceville-Bristol NB
- 10/22 Kingswood University, Sussex NB
- 10/23 Encounter Church, Sussex NB
- 10/30 Amherst Wesleyan, NS
- 11/6 Browns Flat Wesleyan Fellowship, NB
- 11/13 Blacks Harbour Wesleyan, NB
- 11/20 Journey Church, Fredericton NB
We’re looking forward to seeing many of you along the way!
For those of you in churches or areas we can’t get to this time: We are on a 2-year cycle now, meaning more frequent but shorter returns to North America. We kept things close to our home base this time, but hope to get to more and farther places next time.
Thank you for your continuing prayers and partnership!
August Update
Thank you for being praying partners! Here are three things you can be praying specifically for:
1. Since our last update, we’ve visited another nearby church to share about our ministry with Drawbridge Creations. It was an encouraging time! Please keep praying that we can expand our network in Japan so that the ministry tools we create will go to good use.
2. As we shared in our summer newsletter, we’re scheduled for 3 months of midterm Partnership Development in Canada starting in September. Please pray for our preparations, safe travel, health and ministry opportunities.
3. As we also shared in our summer newsletter, we’re looking to expand our team at Drawbridge Creations, especially praying for a web developer to join us either remotely or in person. Ultimately we want to see more missionaries here in Japan. Please pray with us for more workers.
In case you missed it…
– Our summer newsletter
– Blog about workers we need
– The latest Waypoints manga (in English)
Thank you as always for your partnership with us for Jesus and Japan!
Cross-Cultural Opportunities for Christian Creatives
Drawbridge Creations is looking to expand our team!
As we approach the one-year mark since launching our ministry with our first project, Waypoints, we have a lot to thank God for — our financial and prayer partners, the freelance artists we get to collaborate with, the amount of content we’ve been able to create and share, and the encouragement we’ve received along the way.
But this is only the beginning.
In order to build Drawbridge Creations into a more effective and fruitful ministry, we need more workers with various skills. Of course, some roles can be filled by volunteers working remotely. But our hearts’ desire is that Drawbridge can be a platform mobilizing more missionaries to Japan — where some 99% don’t know Jesus!
As Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matt. 9:37-38)
Please join us in praying for more workers!
We currently have three positions we’re trying to fill, but there is some overlap and flexibility here. Please also note that our sending organization Global Partners has opportunities for both short and long-term workers, as well as support-raising or self-supported paths. And as mentioned, remote volunteering is also welcome certain roles.
If you feel like God might be calling YOU, please get in touch!
All Positions Require:
- Willingness to engage in language and culture learning.
- Willingness to engage with the local Church as time, opportunity and skills allow.
- Ability to work independently or with a team.
And here is a summary of those three job descriptions:
Web Developer
This is probably our biggest need right now, and it will be even more important as our ministry expands to multiple projects.
Summary of Job — Primarily, to help facilitate the ministry initiatives of Drawbridge Creations through website design, development and maintenance. Other tasks could include social media content creation and other communication.
Qualifications
- Web development (coding, database, UI, SEO, WordPress) and graphic design skills.
- Asset: ability to handle social media content creation and management.
Social Media and Marketing Expert
This is also a hugely important role as we look to expand and interact with a larger audience in order to share Jesus with them, as well as promote our ministry to the Church in Japan and abroad.
Summary of Job — To help facilitate and promote the ministries of Drawbridge Creations through social media content creation, managing multiple social media accounts, and engaging in marketing and other communications.
Qualifications
- Working knowledge of social media platforms and software such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Buffer, etc, along with skills in writing and design for social media.
- Assets: Marketing or PR training and experience.
Manga Project Collaborators (Artist, writer, designer)
This is probably the first thing people think of when the think about working on a manga ministry. We list it last no because it’s not important, but because the above needs are more urgent at the moment. However, as we expand Drawbridge’s ministries into more and varied projects, we will want not only freelance collaborators but on-site staff to help us up our creative game. Know anyone who fits the bill?
Summary of Job — Collaborating with other Christian creatives in writing, art and design, to produce manga, blog posts, and other artistic content for digital and print-based ministry, as well as for the marketing and promotion of Drawbridge Creations.
Qualifications:
- One or more of the following creative skills: writing, illustration, or graphic design skills.
- Assets: Working knowledge of software such as Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, WordPress, etc.
Please pray with us about these team-building needs!
And if you feel like you might be a good fit, please don’t hesitate to contact either Drawbridge or GP.
