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Dear brothers and sisters,

Praise the Lord for strengthening the faith of His people not just by requiring us to believe in His prophecies but also by fulfilling them. Noah saw the prophesied flood, Judah suffered the prophesied captivity, our Lord Christ fulfilled all the prophecies about the Messiah to come: his birth, life, betrayal, death, burial, resurrection, and victory over death. These days let us rejoice and strengthen our faith, encouraging each other that the promise of our future resurrection will also soon be fulfilled. We are living here as foreigners on our way to home. We serve a trustworthy and faithful God.

Bibles from Japan to China.

Our youngest son shared at our church the need for supporting an evangelistic project of his school. Praise God for blessing our church with the opportunity to help print and send bibles from Japan to China. 

The goal was reached, and the Bibles are being sent right now. Please pray for our Chinese brothers, sisters, and these bibles to not be destroyed but to produce fruit of salvation and worship only to Christ. 

Persevering in evangelism.

My family has been sharing the Gospel for a couple of years with a 72 years old Japanese lady. She meets us when we invite her to some events and outings, but she does not want to come to our church or bible studies. Last week we had a chance again to share the Gospel with her while we celebrated her birthday. Praise God that she started asking questions about life after death, heaven and hell. Please pray that God’s mercy will open her eyes to the truth and that the power of the Gospel will show her her need for repentance, reconciliation, belief, and she will be saved. 

Covid and immigrants

When we first moved to our local area, it had primarily Hispanic immigrants working at the many factories around here. However, in recent years, we have seen an increasing number of Vietnamese, Nepalis, Philippines, and Bangladesh immigrants. They are being treated very poorly by the factories; sometimes, their contractors administrate their bank accounts and retain their passports for exploitation. We have tried to reach them out sometimes, but they do not speak Japanese or English, just their mother tongue. So we started translating the Gospel into their languages, and printing flyers with the shape of a mask. We plan to share free masks with them and give them a flyer with the Gospel in their language. This month we are sharing the Gospel with Filipinos in Tagalog. Please pray so the Gospel will ignite the faith in some of them and that God will lead us in ways to continue leading them to Him.

Coaching in High School

As a ministry and opportunity of evangelism, a friend invited me to soccer coach middle school students at my sons’ school. It has been a blessing volunteering there because I also had the chance to share Christ and the Gospel with them. This year I also started serving as a volunteer coach for the High school students. They are more reluctant to hear about Christ, but they listen to God’s words in our training and practices. Please pray for these students and God to give me wisdom while I coach and share Christ with them. 

Gospel for the Homeless 

We have been monthly assisting and reaching out with God’s Word a group of elderly homeless in Tokyo for six years. We realized some years ago that many of them are not able to hear or understand each other because of mental problems and living a daily emotional and spiritual crisis. Many are polite but very hermetic and do not communicate even among themselves. Please praise God that he is giving us the joy and privilege of traveling every month to visit them, preparing their meals and printing God’s Word with joy and hope that there is power in the word of God, and trusting that if one of them is one of his sons, they will respond in coming to Christ and be saved in God’s time.

Carrot seeds.

These past months my wife decided to grow her vegetables, so we applied to borrow a small 3×2 meters of land that the local government lends to people who want to grow vegetables. So my wife, children, and I went to plant some carrot seeds. After some weeks, nothing was growing, but I noticed that crows were waiting for me to leave and find more seeds. This reminded me of the parable in Matthew 13. How great is our God for blessing my family with a vegetable project but at the same time reminding us that while we share the seeds of the Gospel. We also need to be diligent in communicating it clearly, because when people do not understand it, the birds come to steal the seeds. 

“When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.” Matthew 13:19

Thank you always for your care, encouragement, prayers and support.

All glory to God.

Luis

Tokyo- Japan