Pastor Minamida and the church members at the Deaf church we attend are excited about the Sunday afternoon lesson time using the Socratic method discussion style learned from the Church-Based Theological Education curriculum. A couple of Deaf pastors are already seeking to adapt the curriculum to fit the needs of the Deaf community, and Pastor Minamida’s interest will be a big boost to them. Pray for wisdom as they seek to discern the teachings of scriptures and communicate them in culturally relevant ways to the Deaf community.

 

Sunday’s plans include an outdoor barbecue outreach, but the weather report promises rain the whole weekend. Pray.

It was a blessed Easter!  There were 15 adult visitors at Deaf church yesterday and we almost ran out of chairs!  There was not one grain of rice left at the pot-luck!  I  hope you had a wonderful resurrection day also. 

There’s rejoicing at church.  Mrs. Hatadaya made a public confession of faith.  Mr. Kubota has told the pastor he believes and we pray his public confession will be soon.  This coming Sunday three hearing children (two elementary and one high schooler)  of Deaf families will be baptized at church.   We continue to pray for complete healing for Pastor Minamida’s arms, shoulder and neck.

Thanks for praying. Mary Esther's testimony at the Deaf Church Christmas service went well. It was the best she has ever done signing in front of a group. Several people asked afterward about things she had said, giving opportunity for deeper discussion and teaching on forgiveness.

 

Another full day at church on Sunday.  Mark preached from Exodus, on Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush and God’s sending Moses to lead the Israelites out of bondage in Korea and into the Promised Land.  About half way through the lady sitting next to me said “I wish he’d sign “Egypt” correctly and stop saying “Korea!”   (The location and shape and direction of the signs for Korea and Egypt are the same, just not the number of fingers used to form the sign)  

This evening I got a text message from a Deaf friend.  At church I had mentioned our mission celebrating 60 years in Japan; how so many people attended including our “Asia Director” and also the “Director of the US.”  She texted me to confirm that I had really met “George W. Bush—the Director of the US” at those meetings.

Do keep praying for Pastor Minamida. He has pain in his neck, arms and shoulders, and the doctor told him to stop signing for two months. Right. Something tells me the doctor wasn't Deaf! He has stopped translation work at ViBi for two months, but with messages about the Israelites in bondage in Korea, who knows, he might start preaching sooner than he should.

 

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.

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 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.

The Deaf church has decided to proceed with the new prefab that’s being offered, They plan to start construction soon, and hope to have the building done and be able to move in mid-February.

I managed to grab a couple pictures of the happy couple . . .