Photo Update

Our friend Julie Johnson from the US Navy visited our church this Sunday and took pictures of our service and the following relief drive.

You can view the entire album by following this link.

Here is a story that I want to share with you from today’s events. There is a gentleman named, Mr. Kawana, who has been visiting our church for the last few weeks. He comes from a rather typical Japanese background where he was never exposed to the Bible or met someone who confessed to be a Christian until recently. His employer, who serves as one of our church leaders, befriended him and asked him to check out our church so that he can see what it is all about. Without knowing anything about Christianity, he attended my mother’s funeral service and today’s post-tsunami service. After helping us out with sorting out the donated items, he came up to me and said after carefully witnessing the eternal hope which we possess in Christ and the love for one another which we demonstrate by actions, he wants to buy his first Bible and become a Christian. I am overjoyed at how God has used our Christ-centered preaching and our Gospel-driven community lifestyle to impress this man so much that he was willing to repent from the worldview he grew up with his entire life and be willing to embrace Christ as his Savior. Please pray for him as we are starting a Bible study together within the next few weeks as soon as things slow down a bit.

There are few more things for which I want you to pray. First, we have decided to partner with an elderly care facility in Miyagi prefecture which is owned by Kurigoma Kogen Baptist Church. Currently the facility cares for 70 elderly people, many of them Christians. However, after the tsunami, they have been stranded with 50 social workers who worked there. They only have enough food for 8 more days, and they are quickly running out of supplies to care for the bed-ridden adults. It is our goal to provide ten days worth of food and medical and hygiene supplies before that deadline, no pun intended. Providing food for 120 people who are stranded is very difficult for us right now, not because of the incurring expense, but due to the citywide shortage of any kind of canned food in Tokyo. Yet, we are trying to come up with 3,600 cans of food in the next three days. Also, we want to provide 1,200 boxes of vegetable juices and many boxes of adult diapers and wipes, and such. Unless God provides them for us, we do not know how we can do what we need to do. We chose to partner with them not only because they are Christians, but because they cannot escape even if they wanted to. And currently without our help, they are not sure how they can sustain those people with special needs once their supply runs dry. I know what it is like to take care of someone who must depend on others to simply live. They are at the mercy of care takers. And the care takers can only take care of them as long as they have food and supplies for them. Please pray that God would provide about $6,000 worth of food and supplies that we need to raise to keep them alive. Moreover, please pray that God will allow us to find enough food in Tokyo to meet the demand. And finally please pray that God will provide means for us to get those supplies to where they are stranded, which we cannot approach due to blocked roads and government restrictions.

Also, pray for Julie and her husband Lee Johnson. She and her husband were only married a few months ago, and Lee is on USS McCampbell trying to help the affected areas in the northern Japan. Pray for physical and spiritual and emotional strength for both of them as they are doing their best to serve God with us in spite of these difficult circumstances.

We also received at least 20 times more donations than we originally expected which is great but now we have new challenges of transporting them to the Yokosuka Naval Base. Currently the gas price is $7.50 /gallon and many gas stations are only selling a couple of gallons at a time. We have over 4 tons worth of items that we need to transport during this week. But unless God opens new doors, we do not have the means to transport all of them.

There are more challenges ahead of us that we need to tackle urgently. Please pray for wisdom and open doors so that God will allow us to overcome them for His glory and the lives of those that still need to be saved.