Japan Team Update #3: Family Camp, Asahikawa & Takikawa (Biei & Furano) 

Praise the Lord!  At this point we have had our prayers answered.  We are unified.  We are healthy.  We are all growing in the Lord.  We have seen people come to saving faith in Jesus Christ (5 souls)!!  The Lord continues to pour out His blessings on us.  We have been so encouraged by our daily time in the Word, and in prayer.  The Japanese believers are all beaming with the love of Jesus.  They are so committed to serving Him and to the furthering of the Kingdom.  They are an encouragement and an example to all of us.  Their focus is simple yet effective…Christ and His Word.  They are full of love, joy and passion for evangelism.

Family Camp (July 26 – 28): We enjoyed 3 days at a family camp with the congregations from Sapporo and Otaru.  It is like a Kentucky retreat for the whole church.  This is something that many churches use for fellowship and evangelism.  Keskei, one of Pastor Kamidate`s three students, expressed that he believed in Jesus at a similar camp when he was twelve years old.  This was an encouragement to me.  It was a blast!  We enjoyed games, fellowship time, Bible hour and evening concerts.  One of my goals was for the Americans and the Japanese to get to know one another and experience a deeper form of fellowship.  This was accomplished!  Our other goal was for the non-believers to believe.  There were 4 non-believing visitors and one of them believed!!!  It was a joyous celebration for all of us!  The other 3 visitors were from Otaru.  They did not  believe but had a lot of questions and indicated that they would like to come to the Otaru concert and have more questions answered by Pastor Watanabe (Otaru pastor).  Each of the non-believers was given a Bible so they have the truth!  If the Lord allows us to return next year, we are planning to put on an outsiders camp that will take place at the end of the trip.  We will advertise the camp at all the concerts so people from every city will come.  They said an American camp of this sort would draw a lot of people and bring churches together!  It is exciting to think that God uses our nationality to draw people in…we just need to be available to use it for the Kingdom! 

Asahikawa (July 29 – 31):  We arrived in Asahikawa on Friday afternoon and immediately departed to pass out flyers in the local neighborhoods.  The Japanese are very disciplined and committed to getting the Word out, regardless of the rejection.  They are burdened for the lost and are eager to share the gospel to everyone!  After handing out flyers, everyone went to their homestay (Japanese host family).  Everyone spent Friday & Saturday with their homestay families.  The students had a blast and experienced Japanese culture on a level they have not yet enjoyed.  On Sunday we rented a community center room for the day.  We had a morning service, lunch fellowship, an afternoon concert, more fellowship and an evening meal at the center.  We have a great turnout of the morning service and witnessed two people believe in Jesus for salvation!!!  Praise the Lord!!!  In addition to the salvations, there were a number of visitors who were connected with church members.  This is a huge step.  Many do not want to even step foot in a church or associate with a church group because they do not want to be affiliated with Christians.  The fellowship was a wonderful time of mutual encouragement.  We especially enjoyed time with Chris and Mayu Coll.  They serve faithfully in the church as lay people.  We continue to pray for the church that the Lord will pour His blessing on them and that they will continue to be a light in Asahikawa.

Takikawa (Aug 1 – 3): After saying our tearful goodbyes to the brothers and sisters in Asahikawa, we bussed with Pastor Nakajima (Takikawa church) to the beautiful city of Biei where we performed a concert at the Garden Praise coffee shop.  This establishment is owned by a Christian family.  It is on top of a hill and overlooks rolling farm hills and mountains.  There were at least 30 visitors and Pastor Nakajima shared the gospel.  The students are doing an amazing job of interacting with the Japanese people.  It is not easy to do, especially when there is a language barrier but they are diving in and doing it.  It is really bridging the gap and drawing people in to hear the gospel.  They are experiencing the love of Jesus!!

After our wonderful time in Biei, we bussed to Furano for a time of ministry at an elementary school.  Furano is famous for their lavender fields.  It is a breathtaking sight to see rolling hills of lavender rows.  What was most exciting is what happened at the school in Furano.  This is a school for abused children.  We played baseball…well we assembled a group of players to compete against their baseball team (elementary kids mind you). We were getting killed until Ryan Dick took the mound and pitched us through the 3^rd inning where we scored 5 runs and won!!  What was better than beating elementary students in baseball was the fellowship that took place afterwards.  We ate watermelon and enjoyed seed spitting. It was so much fun to watch these kids laugh and enjoy time with these crazy Americans.  What a blessing that day was!  After Furano we went to Takikawa.  On Tuesday we walked around the entire city for the 2^nd annual Jericho prayer walk.  It was awesome.  While walking and praying, we invited people to the concert.  On Wednesday we had a children`s Bible hour in the morning and an outreach concert in the afternoon.  We had visitors at both events.  What was miraculous is the events that took place in the afternoon concert.  A girl believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of her sins following the concert.  Ruth Honbo (Pastor Honbo of Asahikawa`s daughter) shared the gospel with her and led her in prayer.  We discovered shortly after that this girl was no stranger to Ruth and I.  Eight years ago when I (Troy) first came to Japan with the Longs, we did some tract distributions in Takikawa.  While waiting for the rest of the group at a park, Ruth and I talked with a 10-year-old girl.  Through my minimal Japanese and Ruth`s limited English, we shared the gospel with her.  She expressed that she believed and so they gave her a Bible and tried to follow up with her.  They had limited success getting in contact with her and even less success getting her to come to church.  After several years, they lost contact with her.  Ruth had a picture of our group and kept it to pray for Megumi (which means grace in Japanese) every day.  Shortly after Megumi prayed, we saw Ruth burst into tears of joy.  Ruth realized that this was the girl we had witnessed to 8 years ago!  After 8 years of prayer, the Lord allowed Ruth to lead her to salvation!!!!  Is God amazing or what!  What is incredible is that this girl did not even know who we were but realized it once Ruth pulled out the old photo of our group.  We serve an incredible God!!!   

That brings the total of salvations up to 5!!!  In addition, many have heard the gospel and quite a few have agreed to come to a Bible study to learn more about the truth!  Praise our amazing God!  Praise His holy name!!!

You can view photos by going to our website. [click here]