Dear brothers and sisters,
Praise the Lord for blessing our church with a second group studying our seminars on the foundation of the church. We are being refreshed revisiting again our statement of faith and deepening our understanding about church history. We are in a country with no traces of Christian faith and for all our new believers it is a great blessing to see that we are not an improvised faith with an improvised book, but we come from a line of brave, faithful and loving Christians through history. In our last class, we were rejoicing to study the chronological order from the early church, the Nicene Creed, the reform until our church in Japan. Praise the Lord for His message of salvation and for all the faithful churches sending the Gospel to the world through missions.
This month we had our church retreat and the theme was “evangelizing our children.” Praise God for reminding us that our first mission about evangelism should start towards the children with whom he blessed our families and church. In this times where men demand effortless benefits through practicality, pragmatism, and simplification, please help us pray that we will not just think that our children will come to Christ without us paying the cost of diligence. Please pray that we will not think that Proverbs 22:6 will occur just by teaching children to say grace. Please pray that we will joyfully become exhausted not just sacrificing physically for our children but also we will joyfully be exhausted of praying and diligently training them in the way our Lord instructs us: when we sit, when we are at home, when we walk, when we are on the road, when we lie down and when we get up ( Deuteronomy 11:19). Praise the Lord.
Our church anniversary will be next week, so please join us in prayers thanking our Lord for blessing each one of us in Tokyo with Himself through His word, His Holy Spirit, and the brothers and sisters of our church. We are a group of people from five different countries persevering through our failures and weaknesses but sustained for the love and joy that our Lord graciously places in our lives. All churches exist each day because his love, grace, and mercies are new every morning. All glory to our God!
We were glad that in our last retreat to Mount Fuji, some of our children practiced and prepared worship songs to share after our bible studies. We are glad to see them this time singing worship to God from their own initiative, organization, and preparation. All Sunday school teachers were glad and we were encouraged in continuing praying for their salvation and for God to create a heart of true worship in all the children and also in us the adults.
Thank you for always serving our Lord and supporting the preaching of the Gospel and worship to our Lord in Japan through your prayers, encouragement, and support.
In Christ,
Luis
Tokyo-Japan
