With Immanuel Church and Global Partners leaders in Tokyo
Hi everyone!
Hope you are doing well. For us, it’s been a busy season! Here’s what’s been going on with the Whites over the past month…
We’ve been preparing content for Waypoints season 3, which starts tomorrow (Good Friday) with an Easter-themed manga.
The week of March 21, I (Robin) attended Immanuel Church annual conference in Tokyo. It was a great time of reconnecting with people from across Japan after a few years of doing things mostly online. It was also a a productive time of promoting Drawbridge Creations and our manga project Waypoints.
After the conference, I stayed in Tokyo an extra day to meet with leaders from another organization about a potential collaboration with Drawbridge. Excited about the possibilities!
Then, on the 30th, Yoko and I travelled to Yokohama to see Andi, our (former) fellow GP missionary as she prepared to move back to the US. I’m sure she’d appreciate your prayers about her next steps in life and ministry.
Yoko and I then spent the next couple of days hosting our regional director Cheri who travelled from PNG for a visit. On April 3, Cheri and I were joined by some other GP leaders in Tokyo for meetings with Immanuel Church leaders. This is another first-in-years opportunity, and was a significant and meaningful time.
Finally, this week we have been hosting GP’s entire Asia-Pacific leadership team for their meetings here in Tokyo. We are tired but thankful for these times together with our Wesleyan missions connections. Please pray for safety and rest as we all go our separate ways. And pray too for God’s continuing guidance for our leaders, partners and us!
Looking ahead, the next couple of months should be a lot quieter. We are scheduled to begin leading worship once a month at Immanuel Komatsu Church beginning in April. This is where we worship most weeks, so it will be nice to get more involved this year. Please pray for us as we lead on April 30.
Thank you as always for your continuing prayers and partnership! We appreciate your investment in the mission, for Jesus and Japan!
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)
Sharing about our ministry (Screenshot from the Immanuel Nagoya Church video stream)
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!
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.
