July Newsletter

Children, Children, Children... Oh and Prayer

Between being the missions leaders at New Hope Baptist's VBS and speaking at an RA camp, we have spent A LOT of time with kids (you'd think we would be used to this!). Being able to be a part of teaching the next generation is always a joy. We pray that the Lord would raise them to be faithful followers of Him. Also, we are building a prayer team.

Our Prayer Team

As we prepare to go to Japan, we are building teams that have a large role in supporting our ministry. Aside from our funding team, we are also putting together a prayer team. In this newsletter, we are asking you to join the team. Would you set aside time each week to pray for our ministry and for Japan?

The goal for this team is to pray weekly for our ministry, the Japanese people, and for other missionaries in Japan. We plan on sending out weekly prayer letters that have a short devotional, information about work being done in Japan, and some in depth prayer points.

Leah tells me that no one is going to say no to joining a prayer team. While I’m sure this is true, we are asking people to take time out of their busy schedule, time they could be praying about other needs, and time to read our prayer letters so that they can pray for us and what God is doing in Japan. In essence, this is a selfish request. But, if you have the time or want to make the time to pray for what we are doing, please click the button below and sign up for our prayer letters. We are grateful for all of your support, even if you don’t sign up (you at least read this far).

New Hope VBS

We had a great time serving as the missions leaders for New Hope Baptist’s VBS this month. We focused on making disciples and missions in Japan (surprise, surprise…). New Hope is one of our sending churches and has played a significant role in pushing us to go. We have been happy to call it home for the last three years. We have been traveling a lot lately, which prevents us from attending regularly. But, we are always excited when we get an opportunity to attend and serve with our church family. We pray that the Lord moves in the lives of the children who attended, that they would continue to grow in their love of God and in following Him.

Lubbock Area Baptist Association RA camp

On top of VBS, I had the opportunity to speak at an RA (Royal Ambassadors) camp last week. I talked about church planting and the work we will be doing in Japan. While this whole world needs workers, I find it a great joy to share about the needs in Japan. It is always amazing to see people’s faces when I tell them that it is the second largest unreached people group. I am reminded constantly of Jesus’s command to pray earnestly for more workers (Matt. 9:37-38).

Project Updates

Fundraising

We kickstarted fundraising last month and had a very busy first three weeks. Then, things slowed down due to VBS and RA camp. Even though fundraising slowed, sharing with others and teaching children is very important and we don’t regret taking the time to do this. You can see our progress on fundraising below. Our goal is to reach close to $3k a month by the end of August.

Monthly Goal

$10k

Monthly Raised

$950

Moving Goal

$50k

Moving Raised

$5,700

Japanese

While we can’t be immersed yet, one of our language goals is to have some form of contact with Japanese each day, even if it is only 5-10 minutes. Leah has been able to do this by playing a phone game called “LingoLegends” which gamifys learning language. It seems fun and she is learning some new Kanji, vocabulary, and reading sentences. I’ve recently picked up some low level (LEVEL 0) graded readers. It has been encouraging being able to read simple stories in Japanese.