Hope for Japan

After hours of looking for the cheapest flight, we finanlly purchased our air tickets to Portland, Oregon. We are attending the Annual Meeting of the Evengelical Covenant Church where missionaries are commissioned and pastors are ordained. Our new friends from the missions training that took place earlier this month are all going to be there for this special occasion. We are excited to have a quick reunion with them as well as meeting a whole lot more people from the denomination. One thing we love about the ECC is that we are all like a family. We feel fortunate to be able to serve the Lord together with these wonderful people. After our time in Portland, we are going to drive up to Seattle to meet up with our friends and connect to churches there. As we were planning our trip, I (Miho) began missing Seattle so much. After all, I spent 5 years of my life there. That’s a pretty significant chunk of time. I miss my friends, school, old apartment (hope it’s still there), Queen Ann Hill, Alki Beach, Pike Place Market. And the list goes on… It’s been almost 7 years since I visited the city last. One another thing we are planning to do is to visit an ECC church called Quest Church. They run a cafe during the weekdays and have a church service there on Sundays. As we are planning to do a language cafe in Japan, we want to learn how their cafe operates. With much excitement and nostalgia, we are heading to the North West this Wednesday. Please pray for our trip (see Prayer Requests)!

On Pentecost Sunday, we confirmed and baptized five teens at our church. Their age varies from the 6th grade to the freshman year in high school. We taught a twelve week class starting at the beginning of Lent, covering the basics of Christianity – about God, Man, the Fall, Jesus, Salvation, Church, Missions, Spiritual Desciplines, etc. It’s basically Christianity 101 presented in a fun interactive way. We began offering this class three years ago, and it has become an essential part of the youth ministry since then. Why? Many teens who have gone through this class have told us that this was their turning point in their spiritual life. They began owning their faith rather than it being merely passed down by their parents. One girl said she can now able to explain what she believes to her non-Christian friends. Another girl said that she began reading the Bible on her own after going through this class. And this year, five of them journeyed through this exciting opportunity. We don’t have our own children yet, but we experienced parent-like feelings – very proud of each of the teens – as they were “welcomed into the club.”  As more and more teens are coming to the youth group, getting confirmed and baptized, expressing their interest in getting confirmed next year, we feel very fortunate to be able to see the fruit of our labor, particularly of the last two years and a few months. Not every Christian leader had the privilege to witness it. Indeed, many have died by faithfully following God’s call and laying the foundation. Japan is a tough ground. As much as we want to see the result immediately and enjoy a flourishing ministry, there is no guarantee that God would grant the same privilege.  But we will continue serving the Lord faithfully and creatively. Tomorrow is the beginning of our missions training in Chicago. Pray for blessings!

Our youth group tonight was awesome, but a bit bittersweet. One of our beloved teens, Alisa, is graduating from high school to leave for Stanford next fall. She has been one of the original three teens with whom we started the youth ministry two years ago. She’s been coming to the youth group every Friday despite the distance and busy music rehearsals. She has found a good community in our group and we are very proud of who she is. As our own graduation was at the beginning of this month, her graduation is another reminder of our upcoming transition – ending of one season and beginning of another. We really hope that our teens will be able to visit us in Japan on short-term missions trips or study in Japan as an exchange student.

As this is the very start, we hope this site will give you a picture of what God is doing in our lives and how He is preparing us for our life in Japan. Over the next few weeks, we will be posting photos, info, updates, etc.