October 2011 Update
Hello again! It’s starting to cool down really quickly over here now! I’m really starting to feel the coldness every morning when I wake up now, as we have paper thin walls and I have a thin layer of glass between me and the outside world next to my head! But hey, I prefer this to summer-time! Yuck! Anyway, here’s what has happened this month:
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SEEKING HIS HEART
Keeping Him at the centre.
As was the case last month, the YWAM Tokyo base is going through a time of refocus and this month has been the same. As a base, we have all been spending a lot of time worshipping God and spending time getting to know him and his heart and mind so that we can live and work better as his disciples here on the front lines in Tokyo. The leadership feels that God wants us all to spend time specifically listening to God and do only what he wants us to do, as that is why we are here. It’s all to easy for us to get busy with ministry work in order to feel useful and also be able to fill our newsletters! But that’s not why we are here. We are here to do God’s will. And we believe he is about to do something amazing here. So that has been our biggest focus this month! God has been speaking to us more clearly about moving into Ikebukuro, a central area of Tokyo. But right now, it’s preparation time! The spiritual atmosphere in Ikebukuro is very dark, Yakuza have a strong presence there and there’s an area with many “love hotels” and dodgy massage places and sex stores. I’ll keep you on to date with what’s happening!
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ON THE STREETS
Outdoor worship and evangelism.
Every Friday, we travel to Ikebukuro in order to worship outdoors in a busy area because God is worthy to be worshipped there, even if it is uncomfortable for us. We then spend a good few hours on the streets having conversations with people about how they are doing and getting to know their beliefs and sharing Jesus with them and asking if they want prayer. This has been difficult for me personally as I find it hard to talk to people I don’t know, but it has been good! Lots of people have been prayed for and also have found out about Jesus for the first time! So we pray that God will use the seed planted in them and that he we grow a hunger to find out more about him in their hearts.
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ONLINE CHURCH
Invading the Internet with Jesus.
This month I have been even more involved with online projects. Firstly, we have been working to publicise the evangelism website, godlikesyou.jp more via Facebook. After the first day alone, 21 people clicked the advertisement (a bit of Japanese text that gets people to wonder whether God likes them) then 13 of those people liked the Facebook page! That is around 60% of people making an active decision to receive regular updates about God’s love. We update the page with articles everyday. I don’t know if we will carry on getting this amount of people following us, but as of writing, after around a week, we now have 190 likes! And many people are commenting and sharing! Such a huge step forward! The website itself (godlikesyou.jp) is very basic as we just wanted to get articles up there as soon as possible, so we are planning a huge redesign soon. We are also looking into more publicity such as Google Ads, Yahoo Ads and business card sized cards to hand out on the streets. I have also been involved in setting up the online side of the new church plant I’m involved in. We have set up a small social network where people can stay in touch with each other during the week and share prayer requests and praise reports and stuff like that. If anyone can’t make it to the location of the service during a Saturday night, we also stream the service live via the website, and save it so people can watch at a different time too. This can be found at cornerstone.jp. We are also planning on creating some kind of online discipleship tool that can be used by any Japanese church that will also be used to connect Christians and churches together more easily. So it’s all very exciting! I’m so glad I am able to use my skills in this way.
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OTHER STUFF
Some other things that have happened this month have included weekly outreach and Bible studies in universities, weekly youth groups and a Halloween event for children where around 30 children came and had fun and heard the gospel, along with their parents! The church plant I’m involved with every Saturday evening is going really well too with many people showing up every week with some new faces too! We are experimenting with different things every week and people seem to be really engaging and worshipping God and sharing their own thoughts and opinions on things. We also met last night (Monday) with a couple of the guys and had a good time getting to know each other and sharing what God has been doing in our lives. We hope to make this a weekly thing! The Japanese church I go to with Naoko on a Sunday morning has also been going well and last Sunday we celebrated a new baby in the church and had lunch together. It was a really fun time! I have also been studying Japanese every day for at least a couple of hours and it has been going really well!
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SHORT UK VISIT
I have decided to come visit the UK to spend time with my family this Christmas and I’m really looking forward to seeing as many people as I can while I’m over there! I arrive on 9 December and will spend a day in Aldershot on the 10th, then Reading on the 11th, then I’ll be in Liverpool for a week until the 19th, then I’ll be down with my family in Devon until the 28th when I’ll leave for Japan once again. I hope to see many of you during this time!
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PRAYER POINTS
Thank for so much for taking the time to read this newsletter! Please let me know things you would like prayer for and also if you have your own newsletter or other updates, please send them to me! Take care and have a good final month of Autumn before the snow comes!
Gary
------------
SEEKING HIS HEART
Keeping Him at the centre.
As was the case last month, the YWAM Tokyo base is going through a time of refocus and this month has been the same. As a base, we have all been spending a lot of time worshipping God and spending time getting to know him and his heart and mind so that we can live and work better as his disciples here on the front lines in Tokyo. The leadership feels that God wants us all to spend time specifically listening to God and do only what he wants us to do, as that is why we are here. It’s all to easy for us to get busy with ministry work in order to feel useful and also be able to fill our newsletters! But that’s not why we are here. We are here to do God’s will. And we believe he is about to do something amazing here. So that has been our biggest focus this month! God has been speaking to us more clearly about moving into Ikebukuro, a central area of Tokyo. But right now, it’s preparation time! The spiritual atmosphere in Ikebukuro is very dark, Yakuza have a strong presence there and there’s an area with many “love hotels” and dodgy massage places and sex stores. I’ll keep you on to date with what’s happening!
------------
ON THE STREETS
Outdoor worship and evangelism.
Every Friday, we travel to Ikebukuro in order to worship outdoors in a busy area because God is worthy to be worshipped there, even if it is uncomfortable for us. We then spend a good few hours on the streets having conversations with people about how they are doing and getting to know their beliefs and sharing Jesus with them and asking if they want prayer. This has been difficult for me personally as I find it hard to talk to people I don’t know, but it has been good! Lots of people have been prayed for and also have found out about Jesus for the first time! So we pray that God will use the seed planted in them and that he we grow a hunger to find out more about him in their hearts.
------------
ONLINE CHURCH
Invading the Internet with Jesus.
This month I have been even more involved with online projects. Firstly, we have been working to publicise the evangelism website, godlikesyou.jp more via Facebook. After the first day alone, 21 people clicked the advertisement (a bit of Japanese text that gets people to wonder whether God likes them) then 13 of those people liked the Facebook page! That is around 60% of people making an active decision to receive regular updates about God’s love. We update the page with articles everyday. I don’t know if we will carry on getting this amount of people following us, but as of writing, after around a week, we now have 190 likes! And many people are commenting and sharing! Such a huge step forward! The website itself (godlikesyou.jp) is very basic as we just wanted to get articles up there as soon as possible, so we are planning a huge redesign soon. We are also looking into more publicity such as Google Ads, Yahoo Ads and business card sized cards to hand out on the streets. I have also been involved in setting up the online side of the new church plant I’m involved in. We have set up a small social network where people can stay in touch with each other during the week and share prayer requests and praise reports and stuff like that. If anyone can’t make it to the location of the service during a Saturday night, we also stream the service live via the website, and save it so people can watch at a different time too. This can be found at cornerstone.jp. We are also planning on creating some kind of online discipleship tool that can be used by any Japanese church that will also be used to connect Christians and churches together more easily. So it’s all very exciting! I’m so glad I am able to use my skills in this way.
------------
OTHER STUFF
Some other things that have happened this month have included weekly outreach and Bible studies in universities, weekly youth groups and a Halloween event for children where around 30 children came and had fun and heard the gospel, along with their parents! The church plant I’m involved with every Saturday evening is going really well too with many people showing up every week with some new faces too! We are experimenting with different things every week and people seem to be really engaging and worshipping God and sharing their own thoughts and opinions on things. We also met last night (Monday) with a couple of the guys and had a good time getting to know each other and sharing what God has been doing in our lives. We hope to make this a weekly thing! The Japanese church I go to with Naoko on a Sunday morning has also been going well and last Sunday we celebrated a new baby in the church and had lunch together. It was a really fun time! I have also been studying Japanese every day for at least a couple of hours and it has been going really well!
------------
SHORT UK VISIT
I have decided to come visit the UK to spend time with my family this Christmas and I’m really looking forward to seeing as many people as I can while I’m over there! I arrive on 9 December and will spend a day in Aldershot on the 10th, then Reading on the 11th, then I’ll be in Liverpool for a week until the 19th, then I’ll be down with my family in Devon until the 28th when I’ll leave for Japan once again. I hope to see many of you during this time!
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PRAYER POINTS
- Thank God for blessing me with a UK trip this Christmas!
- Thank God for giving YWAM Tokyo a time to really focus on Him.
- Thank God for giving me lots of opportunity to use my computer skills for His work.
- Thank God for giving me time to study the language.
- Thank God for all the people we pray for and share Jesus with.
- That he will bring those people to know Him.
- That he will use the Internet to share his love with many people and also connect the church in Japan together.
- That he will do a miracle and provide us with a new building so I can tell you all about it next month!
Thank for so much for taking the time to read this newsletter! Please let me know things you would like prayer for and also if you have your own newsletter or other updates, please send them to me! Take care and have a good final month of Autumn before the snow comes!
Gary
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