Summer 2015 Newsletter

Here's our Summer 2015 Newsletter. If you didn't get it, here's the link. If you would like to receive it straight into your inbox, sign up on the right or send us an email. :)

August Focus (full version)

Hello! :)

We had an awesome three weeks in Dallas and are now back in San Jose. We were showered with so much love and generosity during our time in Dallas. We also enjoyed our first date night in probably over three years! I really wish we had more time to spend there, but alas, we had a full August booked waiting for us in not-so-hot-and-humid California. ;)

A few days after we arrived back in San Jose, a family of four came to visit us from Hiroshima. Juhee and the daughter of that family were in the same class at the local Japanese elementary school in first grade, and they’re currently in the same class for second grade, too! I got to know the mom in May of 2014 after the school’s annual Sports Festival and we’ve become closer and closer since. She started attending Asaminami Bilingual Chapel (ABC) with her daughter and sometimes her son (older brother of Juhee’s friend) too since summer of 2014. Before we left Hiroshima to come to the U.S., my friend invited me over for lunch. I asked her whether or not she thinks that her daughter will want to continue going to ABC even if Juhee is not there (as there had been instances like that before), and she said she didn’t know. We were so happy when my friend excitedly emailed to say that her daughter said she wanted to go! We were also so thankful when she emailed later on to say that she is understanding more and more of God’s Word. While she was here, we had lots of opportunities to talk at home, in the car, while walking… Through sharing Peter's testimony, I was able to share the Gospel message with her. One of the things that really touched my heart was when she told me about how her mom’s passing made her feel somewhat lost and perhaps even insecure, but she feels happier now because she knows of God’s love and that He loves her. I was so encouraged! God arranged for a Japanese-American friend that we met when we first arrived in Hiroshima and haven’t seen since, to feel led to attend the Japanese service of the Japanese-American church that we attended with our friends. We were so surprised to see him there! He joined us for lunch and shared some of his story, of how God has been leading him the past couple of years in providing a dream job for him. There were just so many instances where we knew God’s hand was in this whole trip and He was using it to really amplify His love to them. Since returning to Japan, they’ve started praying everyday before dinner. God is definitely working in the hearts of the K family. Please keep praying for them! We had an awesome time and we’re so thankful that God allowed us to have this concentrated time together, where we were really able to live life together. For a quick summary and some photos, check out my Facebook status update here. You can also read a little bit more about them in a past newsletter we sent out here (see Jenny's section of the Family Update).

So… Let’s see… More about August. A friend / church member of our Hiroshima Evangelical Free Church came and went, we had a reunion with our short-term teams that came out in July of 2011 which was great and kinda surreal, Juhee and Sungjae took their CELDTs (California English Language Development Test – mandatory) and we think they did OK, Sungjae had his Kindergarten assessment and introduction, and we’re now getting ready to hit the road again to go down to SoCal!

Peter will be preaching at both morning and afternoon EM services on Sunday, the 16^th, at Global Missions Church in Diamond Bar, LA for those of you in that area. We’re good friends with the EM pastor there, but it’s our first time connecting with this church, so please pray for a good connection with the brothers and sisters there and that they will want to take part in the work that God is doing throughout the world, especially in Japan. Please pray for our kids too as they adjust to another church, another Sunday School, a long day, and new friends.

During this SoCal trip, we’ll also be connecting with Peter’s sister and her two sons. We haven’t seen them for probably something like six years! It’ll be their first time seeing both Sungjae and Jiyeon. It’ll be a short couple of days, but please pray that we will have a good time catching up and be able to make fun memories together.

We’re also really excited about reconnecting with our former Pioneers Japan Area Leaders, the Hoisington’s! They were awesome leaders and we really miss them so we’re really looking forward to spending time with them. I had a short chat with Cindy today and as we were talking about our arrangements to meet, she said that she wanted to try and make things a little bit easier for us because she knows that furlough isn’t really restful at all. Hallelujah! It was just so refreshing to speak to someone who understood. I already know that our time together on Sunday afternoon is going to be far too short!

What else… We’ve officially become members of LivingStones Christian Church, our new commissioning church. We’re really enjoying being part of their church family and have been encouraged by them so much! This month’s small group meeting will be at our place and we’re looking forward to it!

On the 24^th, kids start school!!! We’re looking forward to having more of a routine. Peter will be walking them to school in the mornings. We still have a few Back-to-School items we need to buy but they’ll have to wait till after the SoCal trip. The kids don't seem too nervous about the start of school, but I guess we'll know better closer to the time. Pray for them please! :)

From the 28^th-30^th, we’ll be going to our first church retreat in many years. We’re looking forward to getting to know more of our brothers and sisters at LSCC and deepening our relationships with them too. We’re looking forward to some R&R physically and spiritually too!

We're still pretty tired, busy, stressed, behind on reports / newsletters / materials churches want us to send them, and trying to navigate through constant changes. Prayers for perseverance, energy, and health would be awesome! We're hoping that we'll be able to finish our speaking engagements by the end of October so that we can enjoy weekends together as a family in November before the craziness of preparing to go back happens in December. 

Going on a family vacation still remains a dream. Maybe it'll happen. Other than finances and time, I think one of the reasons why it hasn't happened yet is because the needs of our older two are so different from our youngest. I'm so grateful that Peter had the foresight to buy season passes to Great America for the family. He's been really good about taking the older two when he can. Peter, Juhee, and Sungjae have probably been there 6-7 times! Maybe a family vacation is more work than it's worth right now in our current stage of life?

* A few stories for you, just to finish off:

- Juhee did something really well and the person next to me said, "A+!" Instead of being excited about her achievement and the compliment she received, Juhee turned to me with a serious expression and asked, "What's that?" Once I explained that it's the equivalent of a 100% score in Japan, she was happy. :)

- Juhee and Sungjae came back from daycare one day and said, "Mommy! Bad news!!!" "What? What is it?" They listed a whole bunch of names and said, "They're not coming to daycare anymore!" "Well, maybe they're just not going on the same day as you two or maybe they went on a family vacation or something." "What's a family vacation?" "You know... Like when we went to Korea for one week last year..." (When mommy was trying not to throw up 'cause of her morning sickness and had a fever one of the days too...) >.<

- Sungjae's r's sound like w's, just like most American toddlers, even though he didn't grow up here hearing it. It's kinda cute. ;) He's learning how to write his name, goal is for him to be able to write it all by himself before school starts.

- When Family K came over, Juhee and Sungjae both had a hard time switching back to speaking Japanese! Sungjae kept on speaking English to them the first day. What a change from when we arrived in the U.S. just two and a half months ago!

- Jiyeon, at 4 and a half months, is now wearing 6-9 month clothing and has two teeth. :)

PI to WOM

Many of our friends, supporters, and supporting churches have been asking us the reason for our change in agency from Pioneers International (PI) to World Outreach Ministries (WOM). Let me start off by saying that it's not because of anything bad! We enjoyed being with PI and are grateful to them for helping us during our early days when we didn't know what to do, for helping us to get on to the field, and for being there for us when things got tough on the field too. They're a great organization and we would recommend them to anybody!

We’ve had to explain the change in writing to a few concerned people and churches. We appreciate your concern! I’ve copied and pasted parts of what we’ve sent to them. If you would like more information on anything discussed below, please let us know.

The reason we were led to change missions agencies are mainly twofold: 1) to provide better healthcare for our family, which will give us more peace of mind, and 2) to be better stewards of the finances God has given us.

God willing, we plan to continue serving in Japan, partnering with local Japanese pastors in growing the Kingdom of God, helping to plant churches, and ministering to the Japanese people. In so doing, we want to make sure our family is healthy. Up until now, we have been paying out of pocket for all of our medical expenses in Japan, which has been in the range of $500 to $1000 per year thus far, except for when we had our baby. This includes all the preventative care we've received , care for illnesses and accidents, and any medical costs prior to us having our baby in Japan. We actually have not taken all the preventative healthcare measures we should have in order to save money, which I know isn't best, but we thank God that we and our children have been pretty healthy.

Pioneers has pretty good international health insurance, for which we were paying a pretty high premium. With the deductible also being pretty high, we never reached our deductible and therefore paid all our medical expenses out of pocket. We asked Pioneers if we could join the Japanese national healthcare system so we could receive care at a reasonable price, and opt out of the Pioneer's group plan. Pioneers said we could join the Japanese healthcare system, but that we would still be required to continue with Pioneer's group insurance as well. We were not allowed to opt out of the Pioneer's health plan. To us, paying into both wasn’t a wise decision.

So as we were praying through this, we asked God what we should do.

Practically speaking, joining the Japanese healthcare system will enable us to 1) take better care of our family by paying more attention to preventative care, which we have been lacking, 2) reduce our medical costs significantly because our monthly fees for Japanese National Health Insurance would be approximately half that of Pioneer's insurance, and 3) our visits to the doctor would be covered by the insurance so we won't have to pay out of pocket for all the healthcare services we receive.

So as we've been praying through all this, asking God for leading, and asking Pioneers to allow us to opt out of their group insurance, we looked into various options.

We came across World Outreach Ministries, and saw that they provided the flexibility we were seeking. After reviewing their website, their statement of faith, and researching about them online, Peter felt this could be a good option for us. After much prayer and consideration, he contacted Jason Peebles, the founder and president of WOM for more information. Through Peter’s interaction with him, he seemed like someone he can trust and be able to partner with for the Kingdom of God.

There are two main differences between PI and WOM. PI is a "sending agency", WOM is a "service agency". What this means in a nutshell is that Pioneers is a lot more "hands on" in terms of member care. WOM, on the other hand, doesn't provide this member care. WOM mainly helps us by being our back office in the US providing administrative support to our financial supporters.

This lack of member care might be a point of concern, but we don't think this is the case for us. Although we won't be able to receive "hands on" member care from an organization, we will be able to receive member care resources and referrals from WOM as needed. Also, and more importantly, our missionary network and partnerships with pastors and missionaries in Japan will provide us the relationships through whom we can continue spurring each other to grow spiritually and provide spiritual accountability. Pioneers actually has a team in Fukuoka, and we will continue meeting with them in fellowship. If God opens the door, we will also be partnering with them in various ministries too, especially with regards to college ministry.

As we've been praying through this decision, here are some of the pro's of making the change to WOM.

1) Better and more affordable health care for our family.

2) Better financial stewardship with lowered medical costs

3) Flexibility in ministry. Working with Pioneers has been great, but we were limited to working with only Pioneers and their direct partners. Although we were able to fellowship with other missionaries and pastors in Japan personally, we weren't able to work directly with them. (This is now changing within the PI Hiroshima Team.) Joining WOM will provide us the flexibility to partner with specific churches, and also work directly with other various missionaries and pastors as occasions arise. WOM leaves much of the decision making to the missionary on the field as they believe that the missionary on the ground knows the situation best.

The con's we thought of are...

1) No longer receiving member care from Pioneers, but we think our spiritual, emotional, and mental health will constantly be kept in check by our local brothers and sisters in Christ (fellow missionaries, pastors, church members in Japan, and many of you!).

2) No longer having the close fellowship times with our Pioneers team. We will still have fellowship with them, but not at an organizational level.

Pioneers sent out a very thoughtfully written letter to all of our financial supporters in July to let them know we are transitioning out of Pioneers, not because we had any problems, but rather with their blessing.

So, as sad as it is to leave Pioneers, we are excited about our new relationship with WOM. We have peace in knowing that this decision is best for our family, our long term commitment in serving the people in Japan, and the best stewardship of the finances God provides us.

We hope you agree. :)

Financial Partnership Information

We are able to serve in Japan because of your partnership with us in God's kingdom work. Thank you for ministering alongside us through your prayers and financial support.

Give online...

1. Click on this link, https://www.deoworks.org/peterjennyoh
2. Click on the red “Give” button under our profile.
3. Follow instructions on the DeoWorks: Mission Japan page.

Or if you prefer sending a check...

• Checks to be payable to: DeoWorks
• Mailing Address: 1144 Cadillac Court, Milpitas, CA 95035
• What to write on the memo line if any: Japan Missions - Month of Donation 

Thank you once again for your continued prayers and support. We believe the ministry here is a great investment in the Kingdom of God and we are thankful for you joining us in His work here in Japan.