Ray Report – Aug 29, ’09

August 29, 2009

Hi,

Summer is gone!  Next week we start classes.  It has been a very hot summer with little rain.  So far, no typhoons in our area.  That means not much water in the lakes and reservoirs.  We are expected to have rain next week.  Happy back to school.

Since our school year begins in April, we are just continuing our year.  We hope to have several new adult students as a result of the LST program.  We had a good program again this year.  About 70 readers and most continued to read several times a week.  Quite of few said they wanted to continue in the School of Life classes Jean and I teach.  We had a lot of new readers and some really seemed interested.

Camp was also great!  We finished the new cabin, or almost finished.  Still some little things need to be done.  Those who used it say it is great.  It gives more room for the tall Americans, so they used it as well as some Japanese.  It has room to sleep 20.  Most of our other cabins sleep about 10, some less.  The Cordova team from

Calif. did a good job of teaching classes and one on one teaching.

Tooru Hirosawa was one of he students.  He seemed to be understanding a lot.  He is our hope to become the preacher at Tomobe.  He is in high school now and has had this dream since elementary school.  Pray that he continues to go in this direction.

We also had the Ibaraki Summer Retreat after camp.  For 3 days we visited the Ibaraki Christian Schools campus and had some good sessions on prayer.  We also put these into action by having several prayer times.  One of my former students, who recently came back to the church was there.  It was the first time for Yumiko Hara (Hirayama) to visit the campus since her graduation.  She met quite a few of her former teachers, so I took a picture of her with them.  I baptized her Nov. 15, 1975.  She is now an active  member of the Tachikawa church in Tokyo.  Keep her in your prayers to remain faithful.

Jean and I went on a 3 day vacation to Chiba and went to a Sea World.  We had a good time watching all the dolphins, killer whales, and other fish.  It was good to get away.  Now back to work.

Serving Him in Japan,

Marlin and Jean Ray