newsletter 2022 August and September English

 newsletter 　2022 August, September　

JCCC staff Shota Otsuka　

Praise the Lord ❗ thank you for accessing to my newsletter and taking time to pray for the ministry and me. I am going to share about the preparation for the fall semester , students, and personal things. 

 

1.prayer walk at meidai and nanzan

All the staff went to meidai and nanzan university to pray before the fall semester ministry starts. God reminded me what he has shown to us on campus while walking around and praying. Thankful that  We got a lot of contacts from these two campuses. we are excited to see how God works in the fall semester through this campus🙏

Walking through some places reminded me of students that I met.  and the places that I often used for the bible study meeting. I gave thanks to God that I was able to meet them. I prayed that I would hopefully meet with them again. Also I prayed that we struggled with a place for lunch time. Hopefully we find one. 

 

We are going to campus to do outreach on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11am to 3:00pm in the fall semester. Please pray for the outreach time🙏

 

2.Summer camp

I prepared for the camp from June, but we decided not to have summer camp this year. Beacause no students singed up untill the deadline. There is a timing for the ministry when the camp is effective but the camp is not necesary for now. we decided not to have it. 😢　I learned that staff knows more about students needs. 

 

It was a little sad that it didn't happen but staff is working on how we can share the Gospel to seekers and how we can train students to be His disciple. I thought  the camp was effective this time but i would find the right season for the camp🙏

 

I was still able to learn from senior staff what to start when you are a camp leader. hopefully camp leader experience will be used in the future. thank you for praying🙏

 

・mission team -mission megumi- 

hallelujah! praise the 😆

he name of the team is Mission Grace.

The term is from November 19 to December 19, and they will stay in Nagoya for a month while helping us with our ministry in Nagoya. I am in charge of receiving people in Japan. My main responsibilities include consulting with them on scheduling, finding accommodations, and assigning people to be in charge. Since this is my first time working with them, it has been stressful because I don't really know where to start, please pray that we can help each other as a team and prepare for this year's short-term mission, using past materials as a reference 🙏.

 

I know there will be barriers for the Australian students as well when it comes to sharing the gospel with people from different cultures, but please pray that the seeds of the gospel will be planted well. I am looking forward to seeing how God will work in this short-term mission. I also became more familiar with Christianity through the short-term missionary team eight years ago. I'm sure we will meet  with a lot of people interested in English, but I hope we'll meet people who are truly seeking Christ! Please pray for missions. 

 

3.fellowship and discipleship with students

A.chuki 

Starting in the fall semester, Immanuel (Friday meeting) will have a new style where we all eat together and then have a devotional together. The change was made to make it easier for both Christian students and students who don't yet believe but are connected to us to come. I asked him to lead the devotions and he graciously accepted 😭 Please pray that as he leads the devotions, he would become more familiar with the Word and listen to what God is saying to him so that it will have a positive impact on his daily life. Please also pray that through the sharing of devotions with other students, it will be a time where we can pray for each other 🙏.

Starting in the fall semester, we will be doing a bible study called CE. This is  a material that is used for unbelievers, but I am going to train him so that he can follow up with unbelievers as he evangelizes and meets them. It is a compilation of basic knowledge about Christianity, please pray that this basic knowledge will also be used as a foundation for his faith 🙏.

B. Hiryu and Ayumu 

I have been meeting with Hiryu and Ayumu since the spring semester, and we had lunch together and fellowship during the summer break period. We heard that the schedule for the fall semester has been decided, so we asked them if they would like to continue the bible study in the fall semester. We will now do it again on Wednesdays at 3:00 pm for the fall semester☺️.

There are 4 bible studies left: Resurrection, Salvation by Grace, Repentance, and Accept Christ and Challenge.

Please pray that each bible study will be used to accept Christ 🙏.

C.young adults in my church 

We haven't had much activity so far, but we have started to get together a little bit with college students from our church❗️I'm hoping we can talk about our faith while having fellowship and building relationships with each other😊.

I  wanted to introduce the atmosphere of the church I attend in Nagoya, even if only a little.

4.personal sharing 

A.Building relationships with gym friends

Recently, God spoke to me while reading the Bible. I encourage students to share the gospel with others because it is God's will that we evangelize, and I asked myself this question in the same way. I thought I was the one doing the evangelism since I was going to universities to evangelize, but when I thought about what I was doing in my personal time outside of work, I realized that I had only been in Nagoya for a year, and I was making excuses for not having a community or people I knew very well! 😓I was surprised that while I told students to do it, I didn't have that time for personal time myself. Thinking about it more, I realized that I spend most of my time with my church and CCC people. So, where could I think of my personal mission field? I started to ask myself, the answer was the gym. I go to the gym 4-5 times a week. I made some friends in the gym.  I would like to build a relationship more  with Mr. Takeuchi and Mr. Ito, with  a fellowship so that i can share about chrisitianity with them. 

It is not directly a ministry of CCC, but I would appreciate it if you would pray for me☺️.

B. God first loved us  

I was taught about How big God's love is through discipleship training time. if students were more like" I wanna learn more about the Bible! I want to evangelize so much!"  I have wondered how much easier it would be to train disciples who have a passion to learn more about the Bible and evangelize! There are times in each of our lives when we encounter God deeply. From what time does the bible say we are loved?  

[Romans 5:6-8]

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God has loved us from the time when our hearts were not yet turned toward Him. It is far greater than human does, and God first loves us, even before we loved Him, no matter who we are. I also wanted to be involved in the spiritual growth of each student with God's love✌️.

Thank you for reading this far and praying for me 😭

I look forward to sharing what God is doing in my next newsletter 😀