Newsletter August/September 2024 English

 Newsletter August/September 2024 English

Praise the name of the Lord!

 The heat has finally calmed down and it is more comfortable. How are you all doing?

In this newsletter, you will read reports on the summer camp, discipleship training, personal news, fall semester activities, and upcoming prayer requests. Please read to the end and pray for us.

1. Summer Camp Report

This year's SI Nagoya summer camp was held at Lake Biwa for two days and one night on August 9 and 10 under the theme of “Believe and Grow. I was thankful to spend time with 11 students. One of them was a non-Christian student who also came.

A. Testimony

Haruto, who just recently became a Christian, gave his testimony. Many of the students gathering now are from Christian homes, but he was introduced to the church by a relative three years ago. He had gotten into some trouble and his college recommendation was canceled, and he was not sure what to do with his life. At that time, a relative invited him to a church Christmas party. At the time, he didn't believe in God at all, but he wondered why people at church believed in God and what would change if he believed in God. He went to church sometimes on Sundays because he had time and his relatives attended. 

One day, a church member told him, “There is no unforgiven sin in the Bible,” and he was shocked. From there, he started going to church week after week, and one day he heard 1 John 4:7-8.

Beloved, jlet us love one another, for love is from God, and kwhoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

lAnyone who does not love does not know God, because mGod is love.

He continued to attend church and at Easter time, a church member approached her and began to pray with him. It was at this time when he  prayed to receive God. He came to understand that God took the place of his sins on the cross and that he was loved, not alone, and that God would be with him from now on.

 I was grateful to hear the testimony from non christians because Christian home  students were able to hear his salvation testimony.

Please pray for Haruto's  spiritual growth as a Christian.

B. Community

Samantha, a student from Hong Kong, came to SI Nagoya from April to August, just for the duration of her study in Japan. She was planning to return to Japan as soon as this summer camp was over, so this was her last chance to meet everyone. I had planned to ask her to share her impressions of the past six months at the end of the summer camp, and I was very impressed by what she shared with us.

For her, SI Nagoya was a community like a family. When she came to Japan, she was immediately accepted as a member and was able to find her own place in the community. At first, she felt very lonely living in Japan. That is why she participated in SI Nagoya activities every week. She had a lot of time to spend with Christian students, and she really liked it and was sad to leave Japan.

This is a summary of what she shared. I was really happy to see that SI Nagoya is becoming a warm community in Christ, and that the newcomer actually felt this way. It made me hope that the other new students would feel the same way, and that each one of them would come to know Christ more and become more of a community that loves one another.

I am also thankful for this camp and the opportunity for the students to get to know each other better, testimony, and to learn more about the Word of God together.

2. Discipleship training

A. Chuki, Caleb

We have finally finished our study on idol worship. Through this study, stundents were able to define what idol worship is in their mind.

In the book, idol worship is “anything you consider more important than God, anything that absorbs all of your heart and thoughts, and everything from which you try to get what you can only get from God.

And it said that one way to recognize them is to look at how you spend your money.

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

When I saw this, I was not spending that much. I am thankful that missionary lives by grace, but somewhere in my heart I get anxious and want to save more because I don't know what will happen in the future. However, this ultimately made me realize that I was trying to be secure in what I had. Please pray that I will learn to live trusting in Christ.

Chuki is a first-year graduate student and is thinking about his future career. However, he shared with us that what he considers important in his career path is his career and the reputation of those around him. Please pray that he will seek God in his career.

Caleb shared that when it comes to anger, he thinks about why he is angry about this or that in his daily life. He wonders, “Why am I angry at this or that in my daily life? Please pray that he will understand what is at the root of his anger.

B. Philippines Mission Yuji

He have safely returned from a 2-week mission to the Philippines 🇵🇭 from September.

It seems that there are many things that Yuji experienced in this Philippines mission. There were about 60 people who were actually saved. He says he would love to go back next year and would recommend the mission to others. Since his report did not make it to this newsletter, i will include Yuji's report in the next newsletter! Thank you for your prayers for his short-term mission!

3. Fall semester activities

A.BBQ September 28th

We recently held a BBQ as an easy event to gather at the beginning of a new semester. Since many Christian students have been gathering recently, we had time to eat delicious meat and have a devotional together.

Generally, about 10 Christian students gather when we hold a regular meeting. And the Christian students started to help us prepare for this BBQ. And when I saw the students naturally mingling with other students during the meal, I felt God's work. In the past, the staff alone were doing the preparation, or the staff was actively leading the conversation. When I see such changes, I feel that God is working and the work of the gospel is moving forward.

The thing that impressed me this time was a student named Reiki, who was saved around June. He is continuing discipleship training with other staff members in Nagoya, but we could not see him for a long period of time because his summer vacation started right after he was saved. But during this devotional, we read the part about the prodigal son's younger brother. When he saw him, he shared that he was like himself, living away from God during the summer vacation. He also said, “Please do the discipleship training when there are no classes this semester.

Prayer

We thank God for fellowship in the Lord among SI Nagoya students. That we may learn to serve the Lord from the Bible.

Pray that Reiki will have conviction in his faith and deepen his relationship with God. Pray for encouragement in meeting regularly with staff and fellowship with Christian students. also Please Pray that Reiki will be able to connect with the church.

B.LTC Evangelism Seminar October 4th and 5th

SI Nagoya will hold the first evangelism seminar since the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, we taught evangelism to students individually because there were few Christian students, but this time, eight students will participate in this evangelism seminar. Of course, there are some fears about evangelism and concerns such as not knowing how to do it. Please pray that the students will learn and understand how to share the gospel in their own lives and what the Bible says about evangelism. Three students have experience in evangelism, and three students will be evangelizing for the first time in their lives.

We will hold a lecture on October 4th, and on the afternoon of October 5th, we will go out into the city and actually evangelize by calling out to people. Please pray for the sowing of the gospel in the city of Nagoya.

4. Personal News

This is personal news,  I recently got engaged to Yoo Sooryeon at Nishinomiya Agape Church on August 27th. The engagement ceremony was held at the church, and I am grateful that my parents and siblings all came to church for the first time and listened to the message about marriage in the Bible together. It is really encouraging that Sooryeon is evangelizing my family with me. I was grateful to be able to invite my family to church as the first step. We sang a hymn, and my mother also knows the hymn, and she said she heard it at my Catholic kindergarten.

We plan to get married after Sooryeon has been in Japan for about a year and has adapted to life in Japan. Sooryeon is scheduled to be sent somewhere in Japan from the Korea CCC next year.

Please pray for our path to marriage.

Please pray for my family's salvation.

5. Future schedule/Prayer requests

A. New Student Leaders Team

We added two new members on October 2nd, bringing the total number of student leaders to five. Haruto and Yuji have joined us.

We are grateful that God has given these students the desire to serve for six months. 🥲

They will be primarily responsible for the evangelism event on October 25th and the evangelism event in December.

We also expect them to be role models for other students and lead small groups.

Please pray that the students will be able to talk about how they can share the gospel with their own generation and what the current generation needs in the meetings.

Please pray for the students to be able to carry out the October event while seeking wisdom.

Please pray that the team is new and that they will be able to move forward in unity.

For now, the students' goal for October is to deepen the ties with the students who are already connected to SI Nagoya when thinking about evangelism from a long-term perspective. Currently, the non christian students who sometimes come to our events are not that close with Christian students, so they talked about how they become friends with non chrisitian and then connect them to evangelism in the future.

B. Mission Megumi Short-term Mission Team

From November 24th to December 23rd, Mission Grace (short-term mission team) will be doing evangelism activities for one month this year as well. This year's goal is for Japanese Christian students to become friends with Australian students, evangelize together, and for Japanese students to continue to be involved even after the short-term mission team leaves.

Last year, there were few Christian students and there were no SI student leaders, so it was not student-led, but this year there are student leaders, and some students have been to spring camp and the Philippines mission, so the goal is to encourage Japanese Christian students to evangelize and continue to be involved after that.

First, please pray that Australian students and Japanese Christian students will become friends. Then, please pray that they will be able to evangelize together and meet people who need Christ. I hope that the Japanese students' desire to be saved regarding non-Christians will be given to them as they actually interact with them.

C. New Staff Conference in Thailand

New staff leader training will be held in Thailand from November 18th to 22nd. I've been a staff member for four years now, and this conference is a great opportunity to learn about leadership. Please pray that this will be a good learning and refreshing time for me.

Thank you for reading this newsletter till the end and praying for me.

Next newsletter will be out at the end of November.