Dear brothers and sisters,
Praise God for the blessing to see His mercy through this time of fear. Last Sunday, God blessed our church with the visit of a Brazilian lady with her daughters and another family that just moved to Japan. Through these times, many people are looking for God, answers, and going to churches. Praise God that not only hospitals, police departments, and fire stations are opening their doors to assist people. Churches are also opening their doors to help a higher need, the need for salvation, and reconciliation. Let’s pray to ask God to remind us always that the church doesn’t exist to protect people from the flu. It exists to protect people from eternal punishment and hell. Only the Gospel message provides eternal life.
UIGHUR
Praise God that the love of Christ is extended towards His enemies and peoples from all secular and human-made systems of faith. Last Sunday, a mother with her two daughters attended our church, and at the end of the service, the mother asked if it was ok for her to come because her husband was a Chinese Uighur Muslim. We told her that God’s Gospel is extended to all the world and that her family will be in our prayers. Please help us pray for this family and for the Gospel to open their eyes and bring them to repentance and salvation only through faith in Christ. Please also pray for wisdom while we prepare to share the Gospel with this Muslim man.
ANNIVERSARY & BAPTISMS
We are going to celebrate our anniversary next month. God has been so merciful with each one of us here in Japan. Christians are just 0.5% of the country, and God is still preserving us, growing us and training us. We are a small and almost inexistent church contrasted with the Buddhist and Shintoist majority, but we have seen many blessings in these last years: people repenting, professing faith in Christ, God transforming lives, marriages reunited, attempted abortions stopped, forgiveness and the spiritual fruit that lasts because of the power of God. Please join us praising God for remembering Japan, for still giving us the privilege of planting a church here in Tokyo to worship His name, share the Gospel with the lost and assist the needy.
I am studying 2 Corinthians this month, and God is showing me again how merciful He is through apostle Paul’s humility and motivations of his heart. Paul was sometimes gentle with his words and sometimes bold, but all the motive of his speech was always loved. It is so easy for us to argue, advise, and give opinions in pride. Praise God for reminding me that all encouragement or exhortation must always be motivated by love.
Thank you for always holding the rope through your prayers, encouragement, and support. This mission in Tokyo is our Lord’s mission, and we are invited to participate in many ways.
All glory to God!
Luis, Nicola, Rohan, Lorien & Erendir.
Tokyo-Japan
