I know it may have seemed like I dropped off the face of the earth, but please forgive me for being lax in my communication and know that I am truly thankful for your continuing support, prayers and love. I will try my best to give you the highlights of the past three months or so without getting long-winded. Bear with me.
Since last I blogged:
Christmas and all it’s delicious, busy, decorated, fellowship-filled, cinnamon-scented glory descends on Mito church with more vigor than I had imagined. I had just returned from furlough on the first of December, and so, tumbled head-over-heels in catching up on things missed and preparing for all the special events in December.
Like the English Bible Class Christmas Party.
Then amid all the other regular and special church activities, we had 9 people in our home for Christmas. And it was a blessed time to enjoy friends, gifts and good food.
We started 2011 with a sunrise worship at 6 am on January 1st. And I was off and running again with bible studies, cell group, Sunday school classes, Japanese lessons, meetings, etc. until the evening of the 14th, when all of that came to a screeching halt.
On my way from working at the church to having dinner with friends, I had a relatively minor traffic accident on my scooter. That night I had surgery (by catheter, so no scar — yay!) to stop some internal bleeding and put a ‘patch’ on my damaged spleen, but, by God’s grace and protection, the only other injury that I had was a bruise and scrape on my knee. And that was only the beginning of the blessings and grace that our Heavenly Father poured over me in a situation that could have easily been much, much worse.
So I spent almost two weeks in the hospital recovering from my injury, learning all kinds of new things about the Japanese healthcare system, and seeing more deeply that the Mito church community is full of love and generosity. I also received the blessing and comfort of so many prayers on my behalf from all over the world, as well as a generous gift from my sponsoring church that was so helpful in covering medical and other expenses that come with a traffic accident.
I was unable to work for about a month, so now that I am back to working full-time, I am playing catch-up again. I feel so blessed by the people here, who picked up my responsibilities while I was healing and did so much to take care of me.
Now I am looking forward into a couple of months that promise to be very full and I have faith that God will continue to bless Mito church as we go through a season of transition at the end of the fiscal year.
In March we will be saying goodbye to some of our members who have decided to return to America after this school year of teaching English. And in April we will welcome a new batch of teachers.
We have also decided that we will begin this year’s English Bible Class ministry again in June, so I have already begun thinking about and preparing for that.
Please pray with me . . .
- for safe travels and blessed service for the group that is going to serve in Siem Reap, Cambodia (this includes Joel, some members of Mito church and others from Japan, Singapore and other Asian countries). Please remember the kids in your prayers too. God is working in hearts of Christians in Japan and Singapore to raise money to send some of them to school and provide others with clothes, school supplies and other necessary items.
- that God is working in the hearts of the participants in our EBC ministry. We hope that they have been touched by their time studying the Bible, and that they will be drawn into our community and to our Lord, Jesus Christ.
- a blessing over the English teachers that are preparing to return to the States — may they be comforted as they say goodbye to life in Japan and blessed as they readjust to life in America. Also, pray with me over the preparation of the new teachers coming (7 coming as vocational missionaries, 5 coming through Mito’s sister city program with Anaheim California).
- a prayer of thanksgiving for my speedy recovery from my accident, and all the other blessings I have received along the way. And also please pray for me to continue to heal without incident. (The doctor says that my spleen should be completely done with the healing process in about 5 months.)