A short update on us in January
We reached our support goal for the matching gift for the fall/winter of $7,000. We went beyond it by a few thousand. We are very thankful to God and His Church.
Our current teacher finalized her decision to return to her home in Nagano and work for a Christian school in her home church as of April. Of course we desired her to stay with us, but we recognize this as God's will.
Our new ministry activities from April have been put into writing with the local ministries we will be cooperating with. Our plans have changed as our situation has changed. Last summer we were moving in the direction of starting our own ministry center using Kazumi's uncle's building in front of the station. As we were preparing the building during my summer vacation to open the following spring, I was networking with the area pastors. Ongoing dicussions with pastor Yasu Inoguchi at Agape church led to a change of plans.
Agape rents a seperate building for their after school program and is going to allow us to use space in that building to start some of our new activities. In exchange we will participate in their after school program providing English lessons to gather new students. Last year the J-Space space after school program had 18 students in it. This year it is hoped that with Agape Church and ourselves working in cooperation, we can raise that number to 30+ in the future. The building Agape church uses for J-Space will also be the location where we set a homeschooling co-op during the day.
We are still looking to start a new international Christian worship service in the valley. Our ability to do that will hinge on our ability to find a part-time teacher to work at the English school in our home. Pray for God to open the doors to find people to work for us and for us to work with. We are thankful for the support we have from churches in America and for the hundreds of people we see and meet each week. We will continue to keep you posted as things develop.
