From the Mission
Field
Japanese
Evangelical Missionary Society - "JEMS"
April/May 2007 Newsletter:
Dear Friends and Mission Partners,
To our supporters and partners,
cheerful greetings to you in the name of
our Savior. Sorry it's been a long
time since I last reported to you about
my ministry. I will explain later
in this newsletter the difficulty I ran
into which caused this delay.
Meanwhile, I can tell you much good
news about my ministry. I was
officially accepted as an associate
missionary on a part-time basis at
Machida Christian Center (MCC) in early
March. My tenure began April 1st
and will be good for a year, which is
renewable after review by the church.
Actually, I have been active all along
attending their worship services, giving
messages and testimonies, and joining
their small-group discussions since last
year, after I returned from my last
assignment in Osaka suburb. So I'm
quite accustomed to this church and its
members. Pastor's wife,
Reiko-sensei and I have had a cordial
relationship ever since I served their
church as missionary way back starting
in 1998 for two years.
With her favorable recommendation and
receiving official approval from her
husband and pastor, Rev. David Sugimoto
(while he was away), made my appointment
possible. Pastor Sugimoto came
back recently just before Easter from
Israel on a one-year special leave to
the Holy Land. When he was away,
the assistant pastor was pastoring the
church, but he will be leaving soon to
head another church -- the result of
church-planting by MCC. I will be
working closely with Rekio-sensei since
Pastor Sugimoto is also busy teaching at
prestigious Keio University in Tokyo as
professor of Archeology.
For now, I have four basic duties to
perform. Keep in mind, my work at
least for now is on a part-time basis,
so it is not as extensive as on a
full-time duty. I will be teaching
conversational English, giving Bible
Studies, preaching once a month at their
Sunday English worship services, and
doing outreach activity. I will go
into more detail about these duties in
the next newsletter. Right now,
they already have a missionary, Paul
Seefeldt and his wife, Norma, who were
already there before I came back.
I will tell you more about them next
time.
I have been without my personal
computer since late March, which is the
reason for this delay in this
newsletter. In switching back to
the old Internet provider I had in
Osaka, I discontinued the former
(acquired by Sachiko's daughter) which
was costing me three times as much as
the old one, and could not afford its
expensive cost. In doing so, I
didn't envision many problems it
created. Problems were not cleared
up until April 24, despite repeated
phone calls and delay in their promise.
They now set the activation date (May 7)
because all next week are major holidays
in Japan. I did not have this
problem in Osaka because the lines were
already in place in the church, whereas
we're now in our private apartment
instead.
As a result of those problems, I had
to handwrite this letter and send it by
church's fax machine, one day later.
So please pardon the delay -- I truly
regret it. This newsletter is
short on details in order that I can
inform you sooner of my new assignment,
rather than wait two weeks later for
computer to be set up. This also
accounts for the lack of pictures.
I am quite happy that this new
assignment meets my expectancy as I had
hoped. This also satisfies
Sachiko's desire for us to "slow down,"
compared to full-time duties we had
before. Furthermore, what is so
reassuring is that Reiko-sensei is happy
to have me back, and that I'm accepted
well by the whole MCC congregation.
Because of the long gap between our
present ministry and the last
assignment, we thank you for being
patient and continue to support us.
We appreciate your caring for us and
being gracious partners for mission in
Christ. Actually, I have never
been really inactive, so it is
very easy for me to continue my ministry
without difficulty. Thank you very
much for your untiring support and your
valued partnership. I will update
you once again more clearly next time in
our future newsletters.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the love of God be a comfort
to you each day, now and always.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
