Newsletter 2022 October, November English

 Newsletter 10月　11月

[Ayumu and Hiryu ]

•They are done with the basic christianity course 

SI nagoya had an autumn picnic in early November and they both came out to it. They got to talk to other SI staff at the picnic. 

(I actually got covid at the moment, i was not able to join the picnic.

I lost the flavor a few days 😭 I dont have the after-effects any more.)

Enoch and I keep meeting them almost every week since May. We are finally done with the basic christianity course. 

Hiryu heard the Gospel a lot of times and he understood why people need Jesus Christ for our sin, but something is not clear in his heart, that's why he says he cannot accept Him now. 

Ayumu said that he was able to learn about christianity intellectually.It seems like christianity is not related to his life yet. 

•what we are planning to do for them 

They both didn't accept Jesus Christ at the end of the basic course so far. They said they want to keep meeting us and learn more about the bible.  We are planning to have a bible study session and fellowship. and also planning to connect with other christians and hear a story of how they became a christian. also planning to connect them to our community so that they can experience God's love from the community. 

•prayer requests 

Please pray that the spirit works in their heart and softens their heart. Please also pray that they will have a good influence from our community when they come. Please also pray they will understand christianity is related to their life.

[short term mission team - mission megumi - ]

•They had a flight issue but thank God they arrived nagoya! 

Mission team came to help SI nagoya for 1 month. They were supposed to arrive on November 19th at night, but they had a flight issue at tokyo, 7 of them out of 10 got stuck in tokyo and 7 people stayed at the airport and 3 of them came to nagoya 19th at night. 

I was on my way to the airport to pick them up and got a message from them they missed a flight 😭　I was paniced what happened to them.  Thankfully 7 of them all safely arrived in Nagoya on the morning of the 20th. 

•campus outreach 

I was encouraged to see australia students do outreach on campus ☺️

in Overseas, people have some knowledge about christianity even if they are not christian. meanwhile in Japan , most Japanese people don't know about christianity. Please pray that the mission team struggles with the difference of how they approach students and talk about christianity. 

We are splitted into 2 groups. nanzan team and meidai team. 

I am in charge of nanzan team. 

We are on campus Tuesday to Friday from 11am to 4pm japan time. Please pray for the outreach time. Praise God we already have a lot of contacts.

•Thanks to professor Paul, christmas party

We don't usually do ministry at meijo university because of the security but professor Paul wants to work with us and he gave us a chance to have a christmas party on campus. so thankful that we got to connect to students that we don't usually talk to. God gave us an opportunity. Please pray that we get connected with meijo students and make a friendship. We cannot go to campus without his invitation. if we want to meet students , we need to meet outside campus. 

We occasionally had a bible study session with Paul's invitation. when we had it last time, there were only 2 students. I thought around 5 students were coming out to the christmas party this time. I was thankful that We have 16 students who came out to the event this time. 

I am thankful that God worked in here beyond our expectations.

Our purpose for this event was to build a relationship with meijo students so that we can invite them to our Christmas event , not to share the Gospel this time at school. 

We spent a lot of time just hanging out with students to become friends. 

It has been one year and a half since I came to Nagoya and i saw students gather like this for the first time.  I felt like God showed me what student ministry used to look like before covid.   

•Christmas party

Megumi team is planning to have our Christmas party on December 9th. The objective of this party is to connect students with local staff. Otherwise, the students that the megumi team met will be gone after they leave japan. Please pray that students will be connected to local staff and our community through this event. 

•pray for our needs 

Nagoya ccc hopes that people will be interested in longer missions (1-2 years) in japan. 

We especially hope to have female staff. There are a lot of contacts from campus. but not enough workers. We cannot cover all the female students with our female staff. 

please pray that some of megumi team members will be interested in long term missions in japan by doing/seeing ministry in japan. 

[my personal share]

As I read through the bible, it made me think of His grace not by your work.  

Looking back on my spiritual life, I realized that the relationship with God becomes legalism.  I am good at making a routine and sticking to it. But the bad side of routine is that you can do something without your heart. 

If someone asks me "are you reading the bible?",  i would say "yes i do" but if someone asks me "do you read the bible because you love God" , i would probably say " not really" 

God loves you, it's not because you read the bible everyday. God wants to have a relationship with you. 

It made me think that I have to take some time to go back to the Gospel and  spend with God.