Newsletter 2023 6,7 English

 Praise the Lord: ‼️

In this newsletter, I would like to share about "Vision cast meeting" in June, "Fellowship" and "Conference in Thailand 🇹🇭" in July. I will also share about the prayer requests for the "Summer Camp" in September and the "JCE7" evangelism conference in Gifu prefecture, so I hope you will read to the end!

「vision cast」

In mid-June, staff invited only Christian students to spend some time digging deeper into "missions". First, where do the roots of your faith come from? Most students answered that it was because their parents were Christians, but then we asked if they know how their parents came to believe? When I asked them, most of them did not know. But what I wanted the students to realize here is that "someone told them" in order for them to have faith.

Next, a staff member ,hikari from the Christian Home gave his testimony of how he went to church until high school and how he personally came to believe in Christ. and then i talked about how I who became a Christian when I was a college student, and how I was influenced by Christian people before I became a Christian. 

I was influenced more by the appearance of many Christians than by one Christian. Some just spoke English to me, some taught me words from the Bible, some shared the gospel with me, some invited me to church, some gave me their testimonies, and some taught me the basics of Christianity when I believed. Many different people were involved in my salvation.

I wanted to show that students can also be involved in various ways to share the gospel with the people around them.

The Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 may not be clear to them after they hear it once. That is why I want to keep sharing the vision over and over again and help students to catch the mission as their own. I am thankful that for the first time in a long time we had a Christian-only gathering focused on "missions".

I believe we will have another gathering focsing on missions for students in the fall semester. Please pray that we can help them to take hold of missions as their own.

Fellowship

1. In June I had two fellowships through games. With each session, the number of people increased and 15 participants were given the opportunity to participate. It was a good time for Christian students who are being trained by other staff to have fellowship with non-Christian friends staff met on campus. The games were very exciting and it was a good time.

However, I was not so good in my faith

When 15 participants were given , I should have been overflowing with gratitude to God!but that was not the case this time, so I felt something was wrong. I searched my heart and found that my heart was saying, "Isn't it great that I was able to get 15 people to attend? I was trying to receive the glory myself, instead of giving it back to God. I am grateful to God for bringing this to my attention 🥲 I realized how prone I am to arrogance.

2. One of the SI Nagoya students is a Filipino Christian student. He is a very good at cooking and wanted to serve everyone, so I invited friends and we had a dinner party. We naturally talked about faith and fellowship among the students, and I would like to continue to have this kind of fellowship so that the students can grow closer together. I hope that this will be an opportunity to bring friends there and hear the gospel.

God is working a lot this semester. Please pray that Christians will express God's love and that non-Christians will feel it through this fellowship as well.

Conference in 🇹🇭 Thailand

I didn't really have a full picture of what to expect before I went, but I am so glad I had the opportunity to attend. The conference ran for 5 days from July 25 to 29, and all the messages were passionate about "missions. About 1,700 participants between the ages of 18 and 30 gathered from 35 countries in Asia and other regions.

Not only did they hear the message of missions, but they were also strongly encouraged to go to areas where the gospel has not yet reached. Since there are areas in Japan where the gospel has not yet reached, Japan CCC was also given time to make a presentation and set up a booth to talk with people interested in Japan missions. I was moved to meet several people who were sad when I explained the situation and ministry in Japan and told me that they had always had a heart for Japan and wanted to go there 🥹 I thought that Japan is truly loved by the people and God. It is not an easy decision to go to a foreign country with God's missionary heart, but I was touched to see so many young men and women dedicating their lives for the gospel. Japan is also a country that needs to receive missionaries now, but I could dream that in 10 or 20 years, Japan could become a country that can send missionaries. I was encouraged to continue to be involved with the students so that " mission" will become a part of each Christian's own life .

I was encouraged in the message by Isaiah 6, which says, "Here am I, send me". The Hebrew word hineni is said to appear in the passage . This proclamation includes an attitude of following God, even though we do not know what will happen in the future. The preacher said that although we do not know what will happen in our future, it is important to have a heart to follow God and offer ourselves to Him, and I thought that was really true.

Another thing that made me think was the message that there is always suffering in missionary work. In many Asian countries other than Japan, there are persecutions. But in Japan, there is no persecution for missionary work. Then I wondered what kind of suffering there would be? 

I think one of the suffering in Japan is that it is hard to see the fruit. Many Japanese people have heard of the Bible but do not know details, and they have different concepts of God, so it takes time for them to understand it.

There is so much more I could say and feel about this conference, but it made me think a lot about missions and I am thankful to know about missions in other countries.

Prayer requests

1. Summer Camp 🎐.

 We are planning  summer camp for two days and one night on September 15-16. This time we will be doing it with SI Kyoto, whose ministry situation is similar to ours. The purpose of this camp is to remind them of SI's vision and to keep them coming back for the second semester. we will prepare a talk about why we value fellowship at SI and how fellowship is connected to our vision.

We hope it will be a fun time through Christian community, as we expect many non christian students to attend. please pray that they will stay connected and hear the gospel next semester as a result! Pray that Christian students will also hear about missions over and over again so that they can catch it and understand it by heart. Pray that they will be encouraged to have fellowship with Christian students from different city.

2. JCE7 (Japan Conference on Evangelism)

This is a mission conference in Japan that will be held in Gifu Prefecture from September 19 to 22 this year.

In the SI Nagoya team meeting, we discussed the fact that the awareness of the work of CCC Nagoya is still low, so we decided to prepare for JCE7 in Nagoya to let the local churches know more about the work of CCC in Nagoya. We are going to prepare for the conference with team. Please pray that good relationships will be created here at JCE7 so that we can have good missionary cooperation in the future.

As a "Japan Mission" worker, I know there are many conflicts and difficulties. We would appreciate it if you would pray for us to share with each other how we are doing.

thank you for reading my letter at the end and praying!! 😃