Today is the day....

Konnichiwa!  Genki desuka?  (Have you been well?) 

A lot has happened since our last update almost a week ago!

On Wednesday we wrapped up our ministry at Shinkoiwa Church with a Praise God meeting.  We were able to worship with the church members, give our blessings, and take pictures on final time before moving to Akabane on Thursday morning.  It was definitely a blessed two weeks at Shinkoiwa as our team was able to both encourage and be encouraged by many of the members at Shinkoiwa through small groups, homestays, meals, worship services, and even games of Uno...

Our two faithful friends Yuki (left) and Ryutaro (right)

this almost looks like a...nvm...

Our final picture at Shinkoiwa Church (Kyoukai) 

It's the Pastor's family (minus Mana who had to go to school) and our old faithful friend, Uchi-san (He's the g on the right, behind Joe).  Note our giant extra spiffy bus..

"Uchi-san is professional at everything.  He will do it for you"

That quote basically sums up Uchi-san and his value to the church and to our team

On Thursday we finally arrived at our long awaited mystery destination of Akabane Bible Church!  Our first couple days of ministry involved compiling and passing out tracts promoting the church, our Hawaiian Night we are hosting this coming Sunday (similar to our festival at Shinkoiwa) and our daily English lessons from Mon-Thur.  Please pray for these different ministries we are planning and hosting throughout this week!

Our tract promoting English Camp...

Why must everything be in kanji?!

This is the process of assembling...its similar to the process in a sweat shop except we don't sweat too much...in fact it is quite cold.  note the red shawls that keep us warm during the...summer?

The finished products...they intimidate even the strongest of people...

And these are where the tracts go.  We call this find the motherload.  

Note Ashley's much more joyous face now that the tracts are all passed out!

On Saturday, after passing out tracts in the morning, we were able to do an outreach event at a church run by the family of one of our friends, Arata!  It was called Joy Joy Saturday and it was a kid's outreach event.

But in order to get to Arata's church, we had to first take a 70 minute cross-country hike...

But God is good.  Rainy season has finished and there is now beautiful weather in Japan!  Just in time for our excursion across Japan (ok fine it was just from one town to the next next but our team likes to think we walked across all of Japan)

At Joy Joy Saturday, we sang VBS songs, performed some of our children skits, met a guy from Australia named Clayton, played water balloon games, and just had a joyous time...joy joy saturday ended up being quite the fitting name...   

performing Contagious skit

Some of the precious children

Seeing how the water balloon toss game works

And at the end, we got to play some soccer and dodgeball!  

Please pray for the youth of Japan that they may be able to be the next generation of believers!  Jesus called the children precious in His eyes, and they truly are, but here in Japan there are very few Christian youth (most Christians are elderly).  Please pray that the ministry we do with the kids are seeds being planted that God will water and grow. 

And finally, yesterday was our first Sunday service at Akabane Bible Church and our first time meeting many of the members of the church.  The congregation is about 40 people spread across three services, the last one finishing at 6pm.  While it was a long day, it was a truly blessing time to be able to meet new faces and share worship and fellowship together!  Our ministry involved sharing body worships and skits, leading a children's bible study, making takoyaki, and even leading an entire service (including praise, offering, and message!).  

We got to witness Pastor Robert's (Probert's) first ever sermon!

We have one more week of ministry and one more Sunday service both here in Akabane Church and Japan.  It feels like we just got here and already our time is coming to a close!  Please pray for our team, that we may finish strong!  Also please pray for the members of Akabane Bible Church and the Pastor (Nodera-sensei) that this church may be a beacon of light in this country.  

"Be joyful always.  Pray continually.  Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."  

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

<3 J1 

~Sanji and the red-faced sentou monkies