Latest news from AJ, Aven and Andrew, missionaries to Japan.

On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. Acts 14:27

Dear friends, sorry for the delay in sending an update. Things have been a little bit hectic as we seek to report back to many churches and supporters, as well as reconnect with old friends. We are so thankful for these opportunities to catch up with so many and realize just how blessed we are to be on mission together. Now that we are a bit more settled in Pretoria, we thought it be a good time to share some news and photos with you!

Life on the road
After spending a few weeks in East London reconnecting with family and visiting two supporting churches, we started our journey north. We visited individuals and supporting churches in Margate, Amanzimtoti and Pietermaritzburg. We received a warm welcome at each and were able to share about the work in Japan. We realized that travelling and visiting people with a baby is not an easy thing and needed to make a few adjustments and scale down the work that we would normally do together.
We are thankful to be living at one place for the next 3 months (except for a few days we will spend in Polokwane). Andrew has already become a lot more settled and now we just need to pace ourselves in scheduling visits. Before the end of October, we need to visit 11 churches, meet with around 50 individuals and visit a number of Bible studies. Serious time management and pacing will be required 😊

In 2 months we have already driven 5000km.

Sharing during Sunday services and at a Japan focus missions weekend. Andrew getting better acquainted with the hair dryer in the hotel room.

A few days in our favourite place
We are so thankful that we had time to take a short holiday in Kruger National Park. We were uncertain about what it would be like with Andrew, but it was actually not too bad and we were able to enjoy a lovely time out with friends. We also got to enjoy our first AND second leopard sighting in one day.

Our goals for Home Assignment
I shared in a video that we have four goals for our HA. Report back to supporters about the work in Japan. Reconnecting with family and partners. Re-tool, in other words, acquire new skills, develop new resources and read books that will help us in our ministry. And refresh, time off so we can rest and recover spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Please pray that we can give enough attention to each of these 4 goals. At the moment, most of our time is being poured into reporting and reconnecting but hopefully towards the end of the year we can start looking at our other two goals.

Financial situation
We are very aware that we are in the middle of a difficult financial season. Fuel and food prices are soaring and we know many are feeling enormous pressure. For those who support us financially, we know that it is a major sacrifice and we pray that the Lord will sustain you and continue providing for your needs. We also want to say thank you for your support, it means a lot and we praise the Lord for you. As members of OMF, we are living modestly and want to be good stewards of people’s sacrificial gifts. We also want to make you aware of our future needs so that you can be in prayer for us. When we return to Japan, we will have a few extra expenses.

Andrew will need to start preschool after he turns 3.
We will need to start paying Japanese national pension. (We applied for special exemption but this year we were told that we have to pay 25%.
If possible, we would like to be able to rent a house instead of an apartment. Since we desire to do a church plant it would be nice to have a place where we could potentially gather people.

We simply ask that you be in prayer about these future needs.

Thank you for your love and prayers on our behalf. We hope that we will be able to connect in person soon!

Prayer Requests

Please pray for us as we seek to connect with all our supporters and friends while on Home Assignment.

Pray for creativity, passion and honesty as we share about our 4 years in Japan.

Pray as we juggle many responsibilities with a baby as well as many meetings.

Pray that for AJ preaching at a missions conference in August.

Forward

"Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as high as it will". AW Tozer

Thanks for reading!!!

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