Sorry to keep you waiting. Two months has gone by, we felt like riding on a bullet train, everything goes so fast and we also experience many changes in our life. If I would share about our experience, it will take many pages. I do intend to share with you gradually, please stay tune. First of all, I like to share about God’s faithfulness and provision. In many missionary biographies, we often read about the great man of God. I admire their courage and dedication, and their unshakable determination. However, it seems to me such kind of faith is so far away from me. However, God has His amazing way of “training” His servant. This year, God has changed my role from an ordinary pastor to a rookie missionary, the fear of this new role and responsibility often overwhelms my heart. Facing many change and uncertainty, plus daily family needs, the fear of the unknown is real. In moment like this, I cannot just understand the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, I must believe it is true, and put my trust in Him, because He is all I have and all I need.
I thought about a conversation between Peter and Lord Jesus, “Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Luke 18:28-30) The life of a Christian is a life of offering and sacrifices because our Lord Jesus has given Himself in order to save us, we don’t belong to ourselves but Christ. If we want to gain true joy and eternal life, the only option is to respond to His calling. We praise the Lord, He let us experience His providence. He not only listens to our prayer, He wants to train us to trust in Him, even in the little things. Last month we went to Japan for vision trip, I was worry about the fund we need to raise may not be sufficient. However, on the day before our departure, God provided everything. Praise the Lord, and I want to thank all the brothers and sisters who have given sacrificially on the altar of God, I trust that the Lord will remember your offering. This vision trip plays a critical part in our preparation on the mission to Japan. This trip helps us understand more about the spiritual need of Japan, also we get to learn our future ministry area, target group, and strategy. We are so thankful for our co-worker in Japan, we had wonderful fellowship with them and get to experience what is it like to live in Japan. I will share more about this trip in the days to come. I want to continue with second testimony.
God closed one door, He will open another, better door. Maybe you still remember from my last newsletter, I mention about applying equity line of credit, so we can keep the house and live in it. Unfortunately, the application was denied. We received this news on the day we return from Japan, I was very upset. I am thankful to God for allowing us to buy this house four years ago, but my human weakness says, when you live comfortably in a big house, you do not want to let go. However, we have no choice but sell the house, because we do not have income, we need to rely on the money we get from selling the house. I am also worried about selling the house, what if we not able to sale? So I was going to set a below market price. God’s provision always beyond our imagination, the brother who helped me sell the house suggest me, we should put the market price. God surprise us, the house was sold in one day, and the buyer takes the price we set. We were shocked and amazed by God’s goodness toward us. He certainly is at work and begins to prepare us for a new life in Japan. During the vision trip, we stay at the house of our co-worker for few days. His home was about 1/3 size of my current house. Over the past 4 years, we accumulate tons of unnecessary stuff. We were busy cleaning them up over the past 3 weeks (since we came back from Japan). I guess God wants us to prepare and experience living in a smaller space and live a simple life from now on.
We learn that the mission is walking on the calling He gave us, and obey Him. Let God use us to help others know Christ, experience God’s miracle. Sacrificial Giving is a not a loss, but gain that which cannot replace, and that is the presence of God. Although this life with Christ might be full of risk and “adventures” yet we will witness God is at work!
Are there too many things and stuff that chock your spiritual lives? Would you trust the Lord and give your self to Him, and let Him be the master of your life? He not only deserves everything, He worth everything. Let us run after Him!
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Status Update:
1) We thank the Lord for answering your prayer and gave us wonderful, fruitful vision trip. During this trip, we attend a missionary retreat with JBF (Japan Baptist Fellowship) is the registered name of our mission organization in Japan. We get to know different ministry team and work. Praise the Lord.
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2) Another great gain was to meet with my team leader and co-worker. We had wonderful fellowship and get a taste of living in Japan. Our team leader shows us the church planting strategy and future ministry area. He also shares with us his almost 20 years of mission experience in Japan. This picture is our church planting team in Kawasaki/Yokohama area. I long to join with them to work on planting churches as soon as possible. However, this mission work cannot accomplish by ourselves, but by the partnership with many brothers, sisters, and churches. We need your prayer support and financial support. We believed that God can use you and me to change the future of Japan. Even thought the history of Japan gives us much grief, God is able to change everything. He is able to turn this gifted people group into heavenly soldiers for God’s kingdom. Japanese need our care, we long to see this nation turn around and become a major mission force in the world, would you partner with us?
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3) Partner development status—giving to the mission is not doing charitable work, it is an investment into the heavenly kingdom business. Today we don’t get to see a physical altar, but through our action and giving, we give our life and resource on the altar of God. We need your partnership on Reaching Japanese for Christ. We need your prayer and financial support because the need in Japan is huge. Once I heard a missionary said, if North-America Christian doesn't reach Japanese, probably no one in the world can, because Japan is very expensive and spiritually really hard place. Japan remain one of the most unreached nations in the world. God gave church in North America many resources, may God move His people and partner with us. Together, we can reach the second largest unreached people group for Christ. We are deeply thankful to several brothers, sisters, and churches who have supported us financially. We thank the Lord for your sacrificial giving. Even though we are the one going to the front-line, but in global mission work, you become our partner, you are going with us. We believe when the harvest time come, you and I will enjoy the reward together. We hope to reach our goal in one year and get prepare to launch by 2018 summer. We currently have 32% of monthly support and 29% (one-time giving) on launching-fund. There is still a big gap from our target. We sincerely invite you to pray for this mission work, and may God move you to partner with us. We especially need monthly (or regular, don’t have to be monthly) supported, even if the giving is small. A regular consistent giving will ensure our longevity in mission work. In the next few weeks, I plan to write a full report on our mission budget, I will explain how the fund will be used. I hope this will answer many questions.
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How to become mission partner:
You can send a check (US Or Canadian check only) to Worldventure, please make payable to
WorldVenture, and at memo write #275
Send the check to
WorldVenture
1501 W. Mineral Ave,
Littleton CO, 80120-5612
Note: All currency is in US dollar,
please convert the right number, before you input your desire donation.
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Note: Recently our mission agency is undergoing a major financial system upgrade, it will not complete until maybe July or August. If you felt lead to give financial support during this time, please contact us, because we are not able to see the financial report, so we need to manually record them. Thank you very much for your care.
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