Author: dave.chen

We finally head off back to Sydney today. Thank you for reading the blog. Please pray for safety as we travel back to Sydney and for the growth of the gospel in Japan

thanks

On our final day we again visited the new church plant in Nayoro. Thank you for your prayers as we got to Nayoro which is 1.5 hrs away safely. We weren’t sure as to how many people there’d be at church as there’s usually only 3 regular members and many of them are irregular! But as we pulled up to the church, there were several cars parked and a tiny church that was bustling with hype and excitement. Although there were only about 10 people there, God was working in powerful ways through this new church plant (about a year and half old). Dave again preached from Isaiah 2:1-4 about the ingathering of the nations, challenging the people to be missional wherever they are; while Phillip shared his testimony. We shared church lunch together over homemade Japanese curry.

Although a much smaller church than the Nagayama church and even smaller than EFCA in Sydney, we know that will do amazing things through this small congregation of the saints. Please pray that God would raise up a new pastor for this church as the current pastor is planning to leave next year wishing to plant another church somewhere else.

For the team, it has been a rewarding time to bond together, be challenged to take forth His gospel to whoever and to wherever. Thank you for your ongoing support and prayers through this time. We’ve been challenge to not let these last couple of weeks be something of a distant memory , but to keep the fire of being missional wherever we are- whether that be at uni or work or around the community.

It’s a challenge for each one of us and including you to be a Christian wherever you are and to hold out the gift of life- the gospel. Let’s all be challenged to pray for at least two unbelievers this year with the hope that they may come to know the true and living God.

Yesterday we spent the time debriefing our time in Japan. It was a very encouraging time to affirm each other, look at highlights and think of how things could be done better- if God willingly we hold another one next year.

Last night and early this morning, we were all busily preparing for the Aussie Party that we had today. We baked 100 ANZAC biscuits, lamingtons, and cooked a sausage sizzle. We prayed that God would bring lots of new people to the party. Initially there were only 4 people that turned up and we thought- oh no. Many of the church members did ask their friends but they had things on. But the party still needed to go ahead!

We started with a quick welcome, then got our dancing boots on with bush dancing the heal toe polka. We learnt the steps and everyone had a ball of a time, but were exhausted by the end of it. We then taught them some English skills in how to order food. The dialogue went little like this:

Hello, how are you? (Well thank you, how are you?)

What would you like? (I would like a sausage sizzle, lamington, ANZAC biscuit and a cup of Milo please)

Would you like anything else? (No thank you)

That will be $25 please (thank you)

We went around practicing it in which they will use to order the food from the café. While this was happening another 10 plus others rocked up and joined us.

We also had an Aussie culture quiz teaching them cool stuff about Australia. We had the café and the new people had to order food. We had great conversations and they enjoyed the food very much!

Although the numbers were less than expected, we were encouraged that those who did come and were able to hear Naomi share her testimony of how God saved her though his grace and has given her true worth, hope and meaning in life.

Things to pray for:

-Please continue to pray that the seeds plated were grow and bear good fruit

-Pray that we’d keep in contact with some of the members from church

-Pray that the church would continue to have opportunities to share Jesus with their friends

-We head off again to Nayoro church (which is a 1.5 hr drive) that we’d get their safely as the car had some mechanical issues. Jimmy and Vivian left today to head back to Australia for work, so Hoi Yan is the only driver.

Hi all, this is Jimmy and Vivian.

Thanks for your continuous prayers, that are so important and encouraging to us.  Time flies, today is day 10 already. Thank God that we have built up good relationships with each other.  We two are also promoted to the team’s dad and mum,  (grandpa and grandma to little Sam, haha!).  No worries, all our sons and daughters are still in good shapes.

Today, we had a 3 hour return long drive to city of Nayoro to visit a church plant. It seemed that everyone wasn’t used to being cooped up in car for long hours, and therefore we felt bit tired.  But thanks to Philip, Calvin and Isaac who kept on talking and telling stories.

Kito Sensei of the church plant in Nayoro gave us a very detailed explanation of how Japan churches developed.  One thing that impressed us was the difference between the church revival of Japan and Korea.  In World War II, the Japan government censored all churches messages and forced churches to agree that Buddhism and Shintoism are acceptable.  Moreover, the government put the emperor above God.  Many churches compromised to avoid imprisonment.  Although their lives were saved, the churches declined because of compromising the truth.  On the other hand, the Korean churches didn’t compromise and many people lost their lives.  However, the churches blossomed as a result.

Kito Sensei said that the Japanese churches today have learned their lesson, and hence are speaking out when the government are trying to change the law to allow Japan to go to war. This has implications for us back in Australia as well. During the Edo period, a person must die if he chose to be a Christian and also caused the lives of their neighbours.   That is why in Japan, people hesitate to be different from their neighbours.  It illustrates the urgency of spreading the gospel in Japan.

After the fruitful sharing by Kito Sensei, we took a short visit to Olympic skiing ground.  That is for professional training nowadays. We are going back to the church plant this coming Sunday to join their service where Dave will preach and Phillip and Naomi share their testimonies.

On the return trip there was some minor car troubles. Thanks to Isaac who prayed immediately and we arrived to church safely.  Yamamoto Sensei took the van to the mechanic and seemed it is safe to use.  Praise the Lord.

 Prayer points:

1.  Pray for the churches of Japan to be the light and salt in the society to speak out the truth.
2.  Pray for Dave, Philip and Naomi, that their sharing on Sunday can encourage all the church members.
3.  Pray for the recovery of the team members
4. Pray for the van will be in good condition that doesn’t affect our coming itinerary.
5.  Praise God that there was rain yesterday that could cool us down.

One of the things that this church in Nagayama has made a huge impression on me is their diligence and commitment to pray. They come together every morning at 6.30am to pray for the needs of the church, evangelism, Japan and individual people in the church. On Wednesday (today) they also come together at 10am and 7pm to pray! That puts our prayer life to dead! It has been encouraging to see their passion to come together to pray. It’s something that I’m rebuked of and I’m sure that you guys back home are as well. You see, this is only a church of around 30 adults. And yet their desire to pray is just awesome.

In the arvo, Pastor Yamamoto shared about the history of the church in the Nagayama area, and how the church has gone through some rough patches in the past, and yet God has been faithful. Their vision in 2020 is to plant another three churches in North Japan and have 50 regular members in their congregation. Please continue to pray that God would bless their work and that more and more people in Japan would come to know Jesus.

We then visited a Japanese museum that showed the history of the Nagayama area and showed some really cool stuff about the area. A lot of the info was in Japanese so they had to translate it. Then we visited a couple of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines which was pretty dark spiritually We prayed together that God would open the hearts of the Japanese people who are caught up with this idolatry and to turn back to the true and living God- Jesus Christ. It’s sad to see that people have been seduced by the god of this age to write prayer requests for good health or good exam marks and offer them up to an unknown god.

Things to pray for:

-Give thanks for the faithful prayers of the people at the Nagayama church. May God bless the labours of their hand.

-That God would take the veil away from the hearts of the Japanese people and that they may come to know the true and living God.

-The team is getting pretty tired as we woke up early for the 6.30am prayer meeting. Pray for strength and energy.

Yoyoyo it’s yo woman Naomi!
Just kidding. Who is that. I don’t talk like that. Geesh. #InDenial

Anyway hey guys! Today we had our KIDS Aussie party at the Nagayama church. We handed leaflets out the other day to school kids going back to school. When we saw a kid or two, we just went for it, said “Douzo” (Here you go) and gave them the leaflets. As frightening as it was that we couldn’t communicate well with the children, we handed our expectations of how many would come over to God. It was truly amazing. In the end, more than 19 kids came along today.

This included at least 3-4 of them or more who has never gone to this church before, or has never heard about God. If you think about how there are 30 members of the church, and barely 1 person per year coming to know Jesus per church, having even just 1 child come, who doesn’t usually come, is so so encouraging!

With God, the fruit may be slow but it will surely come. This is something that we have been able to learn and appreciate.

At the start of the party, we saw many familiar faces, but also lots of shy unfamiliar faces of young girls and boys. We sat with them and yeah tried to communicate with them, if not then just smile and say hello. In a non-creepy way. Hopefully.

We started off with showing them the minties game. Everyone was in supeeerrr concentration mode, trying hard not to rip the minties wrapper and get the longest strip. Samuel did a great job at demonstrating how to do it. That was pretty brave since we’re talking about 19 other kids who didn’t speak his language!

Next *drumroll * was more fun and games! Yay! Haha!
So we taught them the song “My God is so Big” and sang it slowly and the kids were surprisingly all working hard on their actions. They all got involved and followed through. After that, we taught them a whole bunch of animal names, including koala (aka drop bear, because it’s cardboard cut-out was like 3x the size of the kangaroo), kangaroo, emu, cockatoo, and wombat. And did a whole bunch of games like fruit salad (animal version) and bang (animal pose version) and another animal pose game. We showed them how interesting the different types of animals were, and then taught them the biggest secret in the world! That is, that God made them all, including us humans. Tada! So unexpected!

The whole arvo was really active and the kids looked like they enjoyed it. What was really cool was that apparently some kids were asking them they could come again and see us again. So hopefully they will come along for Sat! The adult aussie party (can lure kids with snacks).

Honestly, today could have gone so wrong if the kids were bored, or if we couldn’t communicate ourselves enough, or if the kids were too shy to interact with us, etc etc. But it all went so well. And I reckon that’s something we may take for granted a lot in a lot of the things we organise in any context really. Recognising this, we really thank God for such a successful event and that so many children came along. This is definitely something we really want to thank God for in our prayers and in our reflections.

After (and before) the aussie party today, we handed out flyers for the Saturday adult aussie party. Well, rather than handing them out… since the Japanese people are so busy in their daily lives that you barely see any of them walking along the street, If you do see someone it’s almost always seniors or middle school kids riding their bikes home. So what we did was we went around with 500+ flyers and popped them into the mail boxes of the neighbouring streets.

It’s really interesting how the Japanese housings are like. Their front door is 50% only accessible after you opening a screen door and enter this little entrance place (not talking about the ‘genkan’ entrance where you take off your shoes, but outside the actual front door). And their mail box is either just a slit with a swinging lid or a box that looks like a first aid kid box. So it was a bit strange because half of the time, for me anyway, I felt like I was a burglar hahah… I think I looked really sus).

Even though we handed out quite a bit of flyers, I guess we have prayed to similarly hand over the rest to God, and continue to pray about it. I personally found myself getting a bit worried that the people are just going to throw the flyers in the bin, but today 2 Corinthians 3:1-11 really encouraged me and the team. It reminded us that the spirit that lives within us and the power of the gospel is so so glorious, and that we can have confidence in it. Verse 3:11 it says, “And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!”

At the end of today, the Yamamoto’s took us to dinner at a Patisserie owned by a Christian family. Woahhh! Christian family!

It was a really kawaii (cute) wooden shop filled with cakes and flowers and little souvenirs. The lady who served us was really nice and acted really generous. And the food? Oh man the food was really pretty, and really really yummy. There was either omuomu rice, or tempura, or pasta, with rice and miso soup and little salads, etc. Then came the desserts. It was like literally dining in a cake shop with different types of cakes, puddings, and desserts, but with legit restaurant standard good main-course food. Mmm the cream and fruity and chocolatey taste. –Insert more emphasis on how legit yummy they were, for all you food lovers out there. May the drool be with you-

In the end we found out, that the Yamamoto’s were actually treating us for the meal. Really, how many times now have they shared their generosity with us? We’re really thankful for just how much effort they have put in for us for so so many things; from the bare necessities to something as luxurious as a nice meal. This brings my thoughts all back to God with how much He blesses all of us; physical things and powerful relationships, and traits of love, generosity and patience – all because of Jesus. It’s an overwhelming awe that I can’t quite express in words without typing an essay.

Day by day, God may teach us many things, or we might feel stagnant, but it’s amazing that in hindsight you know that He’s always at work. And I’m so glad to be a part of this team and witness all the wonderful things that He does here in Japan. There are so many things to hand over to Him and pray about, and it would be awesome if you can to pray for us too.

Here are a few things you can pray for:

• Pray for the seeds that may have already been sown in the past week during the church service, kid’s camp, and kid’s Australian party and so on.
• Pray for the Saturday adult Aussie party, and that some people may show up at our door step wanting to know what there is in store for them (Probably food at first, but then after that, God! Yay!)
• Pray that the kids who are already coming to the church will continue to come along even as they grow older.
• Pray for the younger regulars as it is incredibly hard for them to share their faith, or even say that they go to church, with their friends and schoolmates.
• Pray for healing for Hoi Yan who has had varies pains for the last week, such as her back pain.
• Pray that our team and the church people’s hearts, minds and bodies can be revitalised each day through strength from God and sufficient sleep so that we can have the energy for the next day, as some of us are quite tired physically and some emotionally.
• Pray that we can keep God and the gospel as the centre of our priorities and lives so that God may be glorified through each and every one of us.

– “Yan time” Corner –

*Driving to Onsen, Jimmy following in another van*

Hoi Yan: “I hope I don’t drive too fast because we might run through a yellow light hahah…”

Hoi Yan: “We might lose Jimmy”

Isaac: “Oh you’re one of those people”

Hoi Yan: “I’m a sinner too”

• Zhen Garden