Give thanks with us!

The lady who arranged for me to lead the Catholic Advent Meditation wrote the following to Mayumi, who passed it on to me:

"The meditation that Pastor Mark led last year was a great experience for the Catholic Deaf believers. They are still talking about Pastor Mark".

Keep praying

 

Yesterday at the Deaf church we attend, Pastor Minamida preached a good message on David's annointing as king, and in the afternoon, we split up into Men's and Women's groups and had a warm and profitable time of fellowship around the Word. God continues to encourage our hearts. Thanks for praying.

This past Sunday at Deaf church about 15 people worked for a couple hours on chairs for the Mongolia shipment.  It was fun to watch the camaraderie.  We were barely done cleaning up the tools, oil sprays, and dirty rags when a dainty lady asked the pastor when the next time was we could clean chairs again!  There was a definite sense of excitement in being able to do something for others. 

Last week we had a huge answer to prayer—a certified bookkeeper to help out part time in keeping the books.  Besides doing the day to day work, she is able to help prepare the financial reports necessary in applying for NPO status.

Thursday we’ll be holding the first “General Conference” for Wheelchairs of Hope. On the agenda: ratify the constitution, approve the budget for this upcoming fiscal year (which begins in March in Japan), decide the roster of board members, and various other items which will be our next step in the process to apply for NPO legal status here.   Please pray for wisdom as we finish preparations. 

Also, please pray for the Japanese church headed on a short term missions trip to Cambodia. They want to take 9 wheelchairs along free of charge, but have hit some snags negotiating with the airline.  Pray for the negotiations to go smoothly. 

We’re still working on exporting a container of wheelchairs from Japan to Mongolia.  We hope to send the 20 foot container next month. We’ve learned a lot, and are thankful for the people God has put in place to help with this, but there are still some pot holes in the road, so we appreciate your prayers!

Thanks for praying!  When I got to church, it looked like I might not have DVD (which I was depending on for the scripture reading and repeated viewing during the message), but the techie guys worked out the bugs in their new system just in time.  Even so, I didn't have time to learn the DVD interface before the service started (ie. what happens when you press fast-forward and rewind, how many times you have to click on the menu to actually get the verse to play, etc.),so was a little on edge. Thanks to your prayers, I remembered one of the points of my message--that we don't have to be afraid of mistakes any more. This helped a lot, to the point that Mary Esther told me she didn't even notice anything had gone wrong. But the best thing is that God was clearly speaking to his people, and even that evening, they were still referring to things they had learned.

Hey, just wanted you to pray for me this morning. I'm preaching at the Deaf church we attend. The text is Phil. 3:4-12, a passage that is very central to my life, how I think and what I do (in my better moments!). Pray that the Holy Spirit will use the Word (Yes! we have a Sign Language translation of Philippians), our interaction with it, and our understanding of it, to bring life to our hearts and to our community.

Praise God with us for a bookkeeper for Wheelchairs of Hope!  Yesterday was a long day for Mary Esther by the time she worked all day getting ready for the first Annual Conference of Members and then went out in the evening with a businessman and a pastor to interview her, but she came home  without the books or the cash, and with a huge burden off of her shoulders.  Thanks, Rick and Pastor Tahara, for coming out after your long days of work for the interview too. And thanks, Ms. Tonsho, for accepting the job.

 

Keep praying for the upcoming Annual Meeting, February 22.

After what seems like ages learning how to do Discourse Analysis in Japanese (by e-mail with a prof in England), today, I started working on Japanese Sign Language. I have a long way to go, but am glad to be startng. Today, I learned to use ELAN, a program used by Sign Language linguists for analyzing videos of people signing.

I got this post the other day:

Mark,
Got an email this morning from a lady who has come to Bible storying twice. We gave her the "set" of 8 DVDs. She sent me a text message
this morning: "WOW! These VDVs are really easy to understand. I have been watching them. Little by little I will see them all. Hallelujah!"
Nan

Praise God with us for a great two days in Sendai. Pastor Matsumoto asked me (Mark) to help with the interpreting for the first Keswick Convention in Northerneastern Japan. Aside from the encouraging messages, it was great to touch base with Pastor Matsumoto, and to meet some new people involved in misistering with Deaf people. I "just happened" to be walking down the stairs with a young lady on her way home from the meetings. It turns out that she goes to church with a prominent sign language interpreter in the Sendai community who recently came to Christ, and has a Deaf friend who is seeking the truth. Pray for Hiroko, and for her Deaf friend.

 

Just to let you know we were able to get a ticket for Y with miles, and she is back in Japan. Please keep praying for her healing, and for the craft shop in the country she came from as they try to keep things going in her absence.

Today at church I talked with a man who is going through major troubles that sometimes just make you want to weep. A friend from church suggested he read the book of James, and he was astounded at what strength it gave him and what he was able to learn about himself through the combination of the Word and all the difficulties he faces.

I say read--actually he did start by reading the Japanese, but there was a lot he just had to let go by without really understanding. Then he remembered the  Japanese Sign Language Bible DVD. His face lit up as he told how much clearer his understanding of the passage was watching the sign language translation, and how much impact it had on him. He was telling me about the passage on the tongue, and how he'd seen little words--even his own words--start major, unstoppable fires, just like James said. Amazing that he wrote that 2000 years ago, and it still holds true today.

Pray that we will hear stories like this multiplied!  We really do want to see the Living Word in a Living Deaf community. May this be only a beginning.