Thank you for your prayers! As we settle into routines, we are beginning to feel at home here in Uchinada, Japan. Uchinada church has been very kind to our family and made us feel very welcome. This church is under the teaching and care of Pastor Sakai, the chair of OM Japan, and has been the center for many missionaries to train before traveling to serve and plant churches in other parts of Japan.
Sunday, October 15 – Uchinada Church introduced our family as new missionaries.
Our family has been blessed with renting a home that formerly belonged to a retired, elderly pastor. It has been home to two other missionary families in the past and will likely be our home for the next two years. There were about 10 church members that came ahead of time and cleaned the home before we moved in. The house has some furnishings, cookware, and other items, and other church members donated additional furniture and linens for our family’s needs.
We also had the opportunity earlier this week to meet with more than 20 OM Japan missionaries. Every month, the OM missionaries in Ishikawa prefecture all come together and meet to pray. OM missionaries from other prefectures attempt to travel to meet when they are able, or join via Skype.
What happened was a refreshing and encouraging time of focused prayer for specific fields in Japan: areas of evangelism, discipleship, and spiritual protection and growth of the local church. There was a unified desire to pray and look for ways to reach specific unreached or “forgotten”, people groups in Japan. These include those in institutions within Japan (seniors, orphans, mentally ill, physically or mentally disabled), housebound seniors, and the “hikikomori”-young people who have completely withdrawn from society. We also prayed about reaching foreigners including: sailors, university students, and temporary workers in the area. We will be meeting in December to pray over and discuss concrete ways to reach these groups.
Praise:
Tak will be preaching for the first time this coming Sunday on November 12 to share the vision to mobilize Japanese church/ Japanese believers to actively share their testimonies and faith with their circles of influence. Many Japanese believers are salarymen, doctors, teachers, etc, and have a unique ability and field of influence to reach Japanese people whom foreign missionaries do not.
Prayer Request:
Please pray that God will convict the hearts of His people in the church in Japan to take on the calling to be witnesses and disciple-makers. This is a calling to every believer.
Tak and Sarah in Japan 
How about reaching young people expressing their intention of suicide on internet? By that way, the nine murdered young people might have been saved before the murder reached them.
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That is a very good point. We just had this conversation one week ago with the church stuff. We are thinking about how we can reach those people that are considering suicide.
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