Praise God for great summer camps. The last camp is being held this weekend. We have had good numbers and many of those were not-yet believers. It has been a very valuable time.
The LifeLine Cruise saw 900 people on 3 separate cruises. It was so well received and though a little chaotic on the day for those involved in organizing, God was with all parts of the Cruise and many people were able to hear the gospel, enjoy Christian Artists and listen to testimonies from Japanese Christians.
Each summer WEC Japan runs a variety of Camps at their Lakeside Camp Site.
This year, camps will start on July 18th and run through to the 16th August.
These camps offer something for all ages, and we hope many not-yet Christians will come along.
The main aim of the camps is outreach and we share a short Christian message each day, as well as ‘Life Stories’ or testimonies from Christians, and open small group discussions.
BeeChoo shares with us - Praise God that seekers have been coming regularly to our KGK campus groups. A lot of them find comfort and strength in reading His word and in the friendships there.
Praise God - Thank you for praying for the special ladies meetings in Kusatsu Church. We had good numbers and apart from enjoying the cooking they all listened attentively to the testimonies and songs. Pray for Gods’ further work in their hearts.
The Japan that WEC entered 59 years ago is very different to today. We can look at the lives changed and churches established in that time, and rejoice. For those of us with experience working here, we know how big those achievements are! The evangelical population is widely quoted as 0.3% or 0.4%, with just 0.2% in church on any Sunday. For all that Japan has done in influencing and changing the world, the church in Japan has struggled to impact and influence the lives of ordinary Japanese people.
Praise God that 8 new students attended KGK’s Freshmen Welcome party, and a fresh graduate has offered to help our staff member Bee Choo Ong for a year, which will alleviate her workload in visiting a couple of campuses.
WEC missionary Elaine Kitamura has recently been distributing tracts in her local area, and hopes to go into the surrounding villages before the rainy season and the hot summer start. She includes a leaflet introducing the church. Please pray that these leaflets will get into the right hands and be read with interest.
As well as planting new churches, we as WEC Japan see part of our role as providing useful resources for the Japanese church. These days, more and more churches are throwing out the hymnbooks and overheads and bringing in computers and projectors – and the Japanese church is no exception. But displaying Japanese text on a computer has some complexities. Often people – especially us foreigners! – don’t know how to pronounce the Chinese characters used in Japanese writing, so these characters are displayed with the Japanese pronunciation written above them.
Please pray for the new field vision, decided at this month's field conference, that we would be encouraged and stimulated to plant a new kind of church in Japan, and for Martin and Julie Crowhurst as field leaders as they lead the field into its implementation.
Carla Barros asks for prayer for her driving lessons and getting a driving license, and for the Latin Group at Nagahama Church who are affected by the economic downturn in manufacturing in Japan.