Hi everyone,
Thank you for your faithful prayers! We have been protected not only from hot/humid summer but also from recent disasters that happened in various areas in Japan during past few weeks.
In the middle of August, more than 5,000 houses got damage and 10 people died by flooding that was caused by heavy rain close to the Tokyo area. During the past 1 week, floods happened in various areas close to our place and in total several hundred houses got damaged. A lot of rice fields and businesses were hit, too. Also, as we mentioned in last month’s letter, Japan just had a big earthquake in July that killed 38 people. More than 60,000 houses were damaged and still 2,000 people are in evacuation shelters after 1 month.
Please pray for continuing efforts to recover.
Ministry-wise, we had a fulfilling summer. One of the highlights was the Bible Night event for youth and young adults, that was held by our church in Kanazawa. After enjoying delicious supper time, Robin and I led the game time, music time and Bible time. It became a great opportunity to know them better (photos below).
I used work-shop style in order to encourage them to recognize how close of a relationship we can have with God through prayer. One third of the participants don’t attend Sunday service regularly and some of them have not accepted Jesus as their saviour yet. But most of the participants expressed that they had some discovery about the relationship with God.
Please pray for God to deepen our fellowship with them and to lead their growth in their faith continually.
Another highlight is our Christmas project. We are working on producing our second mini-comic that includes Christmas-themed manga featuring a Waypoints Christmas story, plus a new, original cartoony Christmas story set in modern times. We're aiming to start taking orders in the mid-October so churches and ministries in Japan can have the booklets in November before the Christmas season begins.
Please pray for God to lead this project and to use our comic effectively!
We pray for God to bless your September!
- Yoko
