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.
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!
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!
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.
Hope your summer’s off to a great start! Here’s a link to our latest JapanLog newsletter, in PDF form. We’re only doing these twice a year now, so trying to make them count. Please read and pray with us about some big needs! Also something in there about going to Canada — What???
Thank you for your prayers this past month. Can you believe it’s June already? In Japan that means the rainy season is coming, though it hasn’t quite hit us yet.
As we mentioned in our previous prayer letter, in May we had a ministry opportunity at Immanuel Komatsu Church. We both gave testimonies and shared about the vision for Drawbridge Creations, and I (Robin) preached. It was great to get out and do some in-person “tag team” ministry after such a long time. We’re thankful for the opportunity, and for the church’s responsiveness and encouragement.
June Prayer Points:
1. We are hoping to have more opportunities like the one above. Please pray for open doors to share the Drawbridge vision in-person over the summer months. For this ministry to succeed, we feel it’s important to get buy-in from the Japanese Church.
2. Please continue praying for our work on Waypoints. Our tenth manga (previewed in the image above) hits the website this month, and the next six months of manga are in various stages of development. Please pray for us and our collaborators as we continue with this project.
3. Please pray with us about the next steps for Drawbridge Creations. We need God’s wisdom as we figure out how to go from an exclusively online ministry to one that also does print publishing. We also want to plan ahead for what comes next after Waypoints.
Thank you again for your partnership with us for Jesus and Japan!
Thank you for your continuing prayers! Yoko and I are just back from a few days’ vacation and celebrating our third wedding anniversary. The picture above is from the Takaoka Art Museum, where we got to see original art by Fujiko F. Fujio, the creator of Doraemon, a popular Japanese manga. We enjoyed our getaway to Toyama, and are grateful for the time off and for God’s blessing on our marriage.
Here are some prayer points for May:
1. This Friday, May 6, Waypoints season two begins at Waypoints.jp. A new story, “The Well,” will be posted in its entirety that day. Please pray that the manga we share over the next few months will help us connect with new readers and point people to Jesus.
2. On May 22 we are scheduled to speak at Immanuel Komatsu Church, having the opportunity to share about our ministry Drawbridge Creations. I (Robin) will also be preaching that morning. Please pray for God’s direction and blessing on our preparation and ministry.
3. Also at the Komatsu Church, a couple of members there are starting a new English outreach for kids. Please pray for this new ministry, which begins in May, and pray that we can be a blessing and encouragement through our involvement.
Thank you again for your prayers! We are grateful for your partnership!
Spring has sprung! In Japan, spring means the end of one school/business/church year, and the beginning of a new one. It’s a time of transition and change for many people. For us, while there are no huge transitions this year, here are some of the changes and challenges we’re praying about now…
Church Life: Multiple waves of Covid have made it difficult for churches in Japan to do ministry as usual, especially with limited space to begin with. So for us as missionaries, in-person ministries have been few and far between this past year and a half. But as things slowly become more open, we are praying about a potential ongoing ministry at our church in Komatsu. Please pray with us for direction about this and other ministry opportunities that may come our way in the coming months.
Drawbridge Creations: In March we finished our first season of serialized manga at Waypoints. We’re taking a break from posting new content in April, in order to work ahead on season two, which starts in May. If you want to catch up, there are eight full stories on the site now. We’re thankful for your prayers and support, and for the excellent artists we get to collaborate with. Please pray that we can reach a wider audience in the months to come, and point our readers to the hope we have in Jesus.
We recently had 10,000 of these cards printed as promotional items for Waypoints. We hope to take or send them to churches and ministries all around Japan so Christians can give them to friends they want to share their faith with. Let’s pray that these cards will all find a good home!
Thank you for your prayers over the past month! Here are some recent highlights and prayer points.
1. February was a month of many online meetings, as we connected with artist collaborators as well as fellow missionaries both GP and other. Yoko and I both attended the annual JEMA meetings via Zoom as well. JEMA is a network that most evangelical missions in Japan are a part of, and is a great resource and connection point to the wider missionary community here.
2. I also had the opportunity to be a part of an online English outreach with English Connect, where I got to share about Waypoints and talk about manga in general. I’m doing it again on March 12, so please pray for this to be a good chance both to promote our ministry and share God’s love.
3. Our Japanese church partners, Immanuel General Mission, are having their annual conference this month, on March 23 & 24. These meetings will be online as well. Please pray for God’s guidance as important issues are discussed and pastors’ assignments are handed out for the coming year.
Yoko and I are thankful for all of these connections, especially during a time when connecting in person has been so difficult. Thank you for staying connected with us as well. We truly appreciate your ongoing partnership with us!
1. Our church in Komatsu celebrated two baptisms on January 23, as a couple who have been connected with our church since last year were baptized together. Praise God for changed lives.
2. We finally raised 100% of our start-up funding goal for Drawbridge Creations! We’re thankful for everyone’s giving and for God’s provision, and look forward to focusing more on the ministry itself this year.
2 Prayer Points:
1. Our goals for Drawbridge Creations in 2022 are to (1) Increase our readership, (2) build our network, and (3) expand our team. (Details on the Drawbridge blog HERE.) Please pray with us for God to enable us to reach these goals and ultimately reach more people for Jesus!
2. Japan is currently experiencing a huge wave of COVID-19 infections. We feel pretty safe here in Ishikawa, but this will continue to limit our in-person ministry opportunities, and for at least a few weeks we’ll be worshiping remotely too. Please pray for Japan, and pray for us to make the most of this time, even with its limitations.
Thank you as always for your prayers and partnership!
