Dear Brothers and Sisters, Praise the Lord for designing us to worship Him. Praise the Lord for opening our eyes from our pride and praise the Lord for letting us worship Him like Mary, Martha and Lazarus did (John 12:2-3) Praise the Lord because we can understand that the greatest reward and greatest possible joy can be be found in worshiping Him.

God has blessed us over the last few weeks, showing us the power that He has to grow us and encourage His people to mature. A man who professed to be a believer from many years ago, who was never baptized because the teaching he had received had falsely informed him that it was not necessary or important for a Christian to be baptized. After joining our Bible study, he was convicted by God’s word of the importance of baptism and told us that he wanted to be baptized. Please pray while praising God because only in His word we will find direction and encouragement to grow and please our Lord.

Last year we participated with Samaritan’s Purse Ministry through their Operation Christmas outreach program. This year our church was invited by Samaritan’s Purse Japan to coordinate and collaborate with Operation Christmas 2017. Praise God for the opportunity to serve with other believers and please pray that our Lord will save many children and their families through the Gospel in 2017.

This month a brother and I started planning and organizing together our plans for evangelism to the community throughout the year. We located places were Hispanic people meet and we visited a restaurant to give out flyers already. We are excited and are praying and trying to cover all the Hispanic meeting places with the gospel. Please pray that God will prepare the way and that this organization and intentional evangelism will be fruitful and joyful.

Last week, God blessed us with the opportunity to meet the mother of Favian, a Peruvian boy that is in critical condition after a surgery on his head because a cancerous tumor. We are thankful to God because Favain’s mother desired to hear more about God after we shared the Gospel with her. We learned that she and her husband are seeking God in prayer every day and that the Bible verses we shared were what they felt God was calling them to do. Pray that God will perform a miracle in Favian’s life and for the family to find salvation and comfort in our Lord. We have arranged a Bible study and prayer time with them. Please pray that our Lord will also keep us serving our Lord and following Him with our lives (John 12:26 ). We serve a mighty and merciful God!

Blessings from Tokyo,

Luis