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!
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.
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:
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!
