During summer vacation we had a bit more time than usual to visit different places, which helped us to build relationship and make connections with Kingdom people in Japan! It was also so encouraging to see what God is doing here, which gave us hope as to what He will still do!
One thing I failed to take pictures of was a visit to Yamato Calvary Chapel, which as far as I know is the largest church in Japan, with over 1,000 members. We went to a Wednesday evening service, and there were probably about 200 people present. We had some very good conversations with some of the people afterward, and Joshua is planning to attend their youth group one of these weeks. There are so few Christian youth in Japan (and basically none in our church), that it is difficult to make good friendships.
These first three pictures are from last week, when a new branch of Shalom Church opened in Shinjuku. Shinjuku Train Station is the busiest one in the world, with 3.5 million users daily! Incidentally, it is also Shinjuku that Fabio goes to daily, to his Japanese school. So, Shalom Church has prayer 24 hours a day, every day! For this inauguration of this new branch, many people came for a prayer/worship meeting that lasted from about 2pm until about 8pm. It was such a beautiful thing to see some 200 Japanese people so passionate about worship and prayer, tirelessly seeking the Lord hour after hour! The presence of the Lord was so strong in that place! It gave me such hope for revival in this dry and thirsty land.



The next two pictures are in our living room. We had very special visitors! You see, over five years ago while we were in Brazil, the Lord put us in touch with a Japanese missionary that wanted to visit Brazil for various reasons. We welcomed him into our home, and he stayed with us for about a week. His name is Shun Jinnai. We recognized at the time that it was no small thing for this to have happened ~ God was clearly trying to reawaken in us a passion for Japan and the Japanese people. SO much so that He sent this young man all the way to Brazil to stay in our home and fan that flame!! That is global sized God stuff!
Well anyway, we hadn’t had the privilege of meeting his lovely wife, Junko, and now they have a beautiful little daughter as well. We had a beautiful night of fellowship together.

Besides the music and the singers, it was again a great opportunity to meet other believers and other pastors from this area. We are thankful for each of these opportunities. May His Kingdom come and His will be done!





