July 5th - Last Preparations

Crossway kids showing off their
Olympic torches.  

Dear Friends - For so long, the mission to Sendai this year seemed so far off- but suddenly it is only two weeks away.  We've had four planning meetings so far, and will have one more this coming Saturday.  We seem to be pretty well prepared and I haven't been receiving any frantic phone calls or emails from anyone.  Besides the planning and preparation meetings, we've also conducted a Sunday school session and led a worship service with the Japanese speaking congregation at Crossway Church.  By presenting the Sunday school program, we were able to give the Crossway staff a day off and it allowed us to have the experience of doing activities we will present in Sendai.  Lauren and Mielee did a craft activity with the kids and they made Olympic torches - to go along with our theme, "Olympics - The Greatest Victory."  The photo at the right shows the kids with their torches.   After they were finished they took a jog through the Crossway campus for their own torch relay.  We will be conducting two worship services while we are in Sendai - July 24th and July 31st.  On July 3rd we presented our first worship service to the nichigo (Japanese speaking) congregation of Crossway Church.  Rhemus gave his testimony, sharing about accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, with Kumi translating it into Japanese.  The entire team led the singing with Shizuka playing piano and Danny providing percussion.  And then Shizuka gave the morning message to us.  The singing sounded very good.  We have many wonderful singers, which is a great blessing.  They drown out the froggy voices
of the two old men on the mission team.

Shizuka presenting the message at the
Crossway Church Sunday service.

 We would appreciate and treasure your prayers as we prepare our lessons, activities, and most importantly, our hearts for the upcoming mission.  We will be leaving from LAX at 1:20AM on Wednesday, July 20th for our 10½ flight to the Haneda Airport.  Please pray that we will have the boldness and confidence to share the gospel, the message of salvation and redemption through Jesus Christ, in a manner which will entice and encourage the Japanese people to seek a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Thank you to all of you who have supported us with your financial and prayer support already.  God be with you and bless you.  Love, the Sendai 16 Mission Team