Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebrating celebrating CHRIST, our Savior.

Here's a Christmas greetings and a short update for you. Hopefully we'll be sending out a full newsletter soon.

Thank you for your prayers and support in 2023!  

Winter '22/Spring '23 Update

Took way too long, but here's our very belated newsletter. So so so much has happened and we've been blessed by teams that have come since all of the things we wrote about in this newsletter. We can't wait to tell you about them in our next one! If you didn't get this one in your inbox, here's the link. 

Thank you so much for your constant prayers! We wouldn't be here without you :)

Winter 2022 Update

We are so thankful for all that God has done through our new ministry center during its first few months of opening. The past few months have been like a dream and we're thankful to have you to share all of our blessings with. If you didn't get it into your inbox, here's the link.

Thank you for your prayers! :) We wouldn't be here without them.

Introducing our labeling machine! (from Facebook)

After a few weeks hiatus, a group of us got together today to get things ready at our ministry center. We received a few boxes of Christian literature from Kabe Greenhill Chapel in Hiroshima when the Ogawa's came for our Dedication Service. I also got a couple of boxes of English kids books from someone in a city close by who was getting rid of her books. We also had books at home in Peter's office that we had taken over so we had a lot of literature that needed to be stamped with our ministry center’s name. From our last round of stamping, we found out that stamps don’t work for some of the books so I bought a labeling machine. It came in so useful today!

Nao and Etsuko-san became experts at using the labeling machine and made lots of cute little labels! They even figured out how to save them - yay! We used up a whole roll this morning so I had to go get more. Little K helped us too! He helped us "stick" labels on everything including the game boxes. I love it when he calls me! “Auntie Jenny~” My heart becomes happy every time he calls me. 

Stamping piles of a variety of literature. Thank you Ogawa-san and Pastor Kitano and everyone at Kabe Chapel for the Bibles and Christian books! Etsuko-san bought us these caps to keep unwanted creepy crawlies from crawling into our house through the AC hoses. No cockroaches please!!!

Our three had helped so much during the past few days by moving everything from Peter’s office at our house to his new office at the ministry center. Still a lot of sorting to do, but we’re thankful that things are moving forward little by little.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be stamping and labeling more books! Peter will be getting his office ready, and hopefully, I’ll be able to work on getting my office ready too.

Typhoon season (from Facebook)

It’s typhoon season here and the last one was pretty loud, but as usual, we thankfully didn’t suffer any serious damage. Thank You, God!

A few years ago the bikes we usually keep in front of our door toppled over during the typhoon blocking our door making it kinda hard for us to get out. Thankfully, Juhee remembered this just as the winds were really picking up and so we laid them down by the side of the house like we usually do when we get severe typhoon warnings. One of the shades that we have on the outside of the house was blown away so Sungjae biked around the neighborhood looking for it. All three kids helped with the clean-up after and did a bit of overdue gardening too.

I went to our ministry center today and noticed that one of the big trees by the stone torii gate next to us had fallen. Such a shame :(

Getting ready to do some gardening/clean-up. Need to protect yourself from mosquitoes and big spiders that just come out of nowhere you know! All three kids helped with the cleaning and Sungjae went off to find the blinds/shades that were completely blown away. The big fallen tree :(

Big Project #4 Newsletter

Here’s our latest newsletter! Finally! Sorry it's taken us more than 6 months, but so much has happened! We've had so many big events and have experienced so many miracles and so much love... We're thankful to be able share all of this with all of you! 

Google Maps Madness (from Facebook)

A couple of days ago, I was amazed that we had had more than 1,400 views on Google Maps just this month for our ministry center. I just checked and we have more than 8,400 views now. Today’s only Sept. 5th. How is this possible?!

      

2nd Dedication Service (from Facebook)

Here’s a belated update on our 2nd Dedication Service which was held on Saturday, August 20th.

We’re so thankful God planned a more low-key practice run in English for us first! Our 2nd one had many more Japanese guests and Korean missionaries than our first one, so Japanese was definitely the preferred language. It was also a slightly more formal event too. God also arranged for all of the members of our Board of Directors from 3 different prefectures to be there on the same day too! God is good!

We’re especially thankful that Ogawaさん and Yokoさん drove all the way from Hiroshima the evening before. They were the guarantors that allowed us to start this amazing journey God has had us on in Japan. They’d only met us once for a couple of hours at an event we attended during our vision trip back in Fall of 2008. They were not just our guarantors, but our family. Even from before we finally arrived two years later, they were doing so much for us! They were such a big part of our lives from the moment they welcomed us at Hiroshima Airport and always did so so much for us while we were there! We still use some of the bags Yokoさん made for Juhee when she entered kindergarten 11 years ago. We went over for meals and went on outings together too! They came to every one of Juhee’s ballet recitals, and of course, were one of the first to come visit us in the hospital after Jiyeon was born. It was so amazing to be able to have them there with us on this special day and for Ogawaさん to pray a prayer of thanksgiving and dedication for Iito Christ Center. God is so good!!

I welcomed everyone and Peter led us in "God is so good". We then enjoyed K.Boaz's mini concert. His youngest joined her daddy in front as if it was the most natural thing in the world :D

For the 2nd Dedication Service, we translated the ppt into Japanese. It wasn't perfect, but it was understandable - we hope :P We then sang "God is so good" in English and Japanese, too. Ogawa-san prayed a prayer of thanksgiving and dedication over us, the ministry center, and all those who will come through our doors. Thankful for Pastor Miyauchi’s benediction. It was his invitation to work as supporting missionaries at his church, Fukuoka Evangelical Free Church, that brought us to Fukuoka 6 and a half years ago

There were a lot more kids this time, almost all girls! Many of our guests went to check out Joy House during snack time after. My Adult English Conversation Class ladies! These two came the most often and were there with me till the end. I’m going to miss my Wednesday afternoon chat time with them! I remember the Wednesday I shared with them that we got our loan a few days prior and K-san said to me, “sensei, I really didn’t think you’d be able to get it”. It’d been a long process and I’d shared with them all of our struggles in getting a loan. Indeed, it was totally a miracle from God that we got it. And it was only because we had faith that this was part of God’s plan that we didn’t give up and persevered

Our wonderful Board of Directors <3

Miho' family's visit (from Facebook)

 In a way that only God could have orchestrated, He arranged for Miho and her kids to come stay with us

She let me know just a couple of days before they came to Fukuoka for Kyohei's Open Campus visit and they had no definite plan as to how long they would stay. We played it by ear, they made a couple of adjustments to their schedules along the way, and they were able to stay a full 10 days!

The three of them cooked, cleaned, babysat, studied, built furniture and wood decks, and went shopping with me many many many times. Miho going shopping with me meant that I had someone to bounce ideas off of (other than Peter) and we were able to spend time catching up with each other too.

Miho was the first close friend I made after moving to Japan. We met at the kindergarten’s flower arrangement class, soon after Juhee started there. It was so nice to meet not only a bilingual mom, but also a Christian one too! We had so much fun at each other’s homes and spent so much time together during our first few years in Hiroshima.

It was so special having her and her kids here with us to celebrate this special day with us. It was also so loving of our Heavenly Father to bring a friend that I can communicate comfortably with and rely on completely during my time of need.

I’m so thankful that we were able to treat them to one nice meal for their labor of love before Miho and Kyohei went back. One precious child is still here with us and will stay to help us with VBS next week.

God is good.

We're on Google Maps! (from Facebook)

While working on getting everything ready as much as possible for the Dedication Services this week, VBS next week, and the restart of our English classes the week after, we’re also trying to get ourselves out there on the web and in our local community too.

We still need to make updates, but as of yesterday, we are now on Google Maps! Well, kind of because the satellite photo still shows empty land where our new building is. But if people look us up, they’ll at least see a photo of the building and some of the inside too instead of just empty land.

In terms of making ourselves known on a more local level, we have a small ad being placed in our local free newspaper. It only has a circulation of about 10,000, but that’s about 9,950 more people in our community finding out about us. This ad advertises the Free School explanation meetings and Open Campus week which we’re currently totally unprepared for, but hopefully will be totally ready for when it’s time!

Unfortunately, we don’t have a website yet, but we’re working on it! And a logo... And a very very overdue newsletter too!