February update!

Hey everyone!

I'm back for the monthly update! I hope everyone had a good February! I certainly had a good, yet challenging time this month. Definitely things are always interesting here as I continue to minister to people and to serve at J-house, but I enjoy every moment I have good or bad, easy or difficult! Anyway, on to my updates for the month!

Student Ministry

At this moment, I Think I have mentioned in the last update that the students are on vacation until April, so that means we are not going on campuses. But though we don't go on campus, we are still working and ministering to the students that we have come to know and communicate with. The rest of the J-soldiers and I are challenged every week to try and meet up and continue to deepen the relationships we have made on campus and to share the gospel with them. we have also created many events so that we have opportunities to hang out with them. It's actually a lot more difficult then it sounds, we have many students that we talk to so it was hard to keep track of how we were doing and the progress we were making, so we created a spread sheet in order to "map" the people we were talking to that we check every week. Also the students are also looking to do other things and go other places, so getting a hold of them is a difficult but continuous task every week of emails, phone calls, text messages and facebook messages. We have had good progress so far though through Jesus. One of the students that had come to visit us has prayed the prayer of acceptance! Praise God! But of course it doesn't end there since we also want to make sure that he understands everything that he has done, and also to keep up with him to help him grow in Christ! But it's very encouraging to know that God is working in the students that He leads us to talk to, all we have to do is follow! Also one of the students that my colleague and I are discipling is looking to get baptized in the next few months! She's taking the classes to help her understand the meaning behind being baptized, and I'm very happy that she has decided to take the step of faith and to proclaim to the world that she is a follower of Christ! I'm very blessed and humbled to see how God is working even when we are not on campus.

Church and J-Soldier Ministries

February was also very busy month for the Jesus Soldiers and I. We have been asked by Pastor Katsuya to give messages this whole month so that he can also focus on writing his new disciple book for the church. as I mentioned in my last update, I was charged to speak at our Wednesday Power worship session the first wednesday of the month. It was a bit of a challenge because I had to consider timing with Japanese translations. Translation basically doubles the time of the message, so I had to think about how to make my message fit in a 20 minute time slot. But by God's grace, it went well, though I was really nervous. We also continue street evangelism every Saturday. we have been blessed to have a few teams from YWAM help us during those times we go out and proclaim the Gospel. Though I still think this month for us was the most difficult. On even one Saturday, we we're kicked out of all 3 locations we were singing at by security! It was a strange thing because we had always played in those locations, yet on that night, security chose to kick us out lol! But again we continue on as God directs us every Saturday to go out and proclaim the Gospel in Osaka, and it is still always a blessing to do so! We have met many people and by God's grace, some of those people have come to J-house to hear about the word! So we ain't gonna stop now haha! This month we were also graced with another mission team from Korea, I actually never saw them much though. Their church is called the Davidic Generation, and they were a much younger group then the last mission team that came. I didn't know much about what they did in Osaka since they only used J-house as a base of operation, but they were a nice bunch of kids and they help a lot during the times when we did collaborate and do ministry together!

Other Ministry and Daily Lifestyle

This month during my times when I'm not too busy, I'm reading and studying a lot more. I have invested in an Amazon Kindle (electronic book) because buying books here is sort of difficult....especially when I'm trying to find english titles, so having the Kindle helps me get the books I want to read. Right now, I'm trying to only read Christian literature so that I may be able to build up my knowledge of the word and get insights from other Pastors and teachers. I find that my knowledge, though I may be here, is still lacking, and I want to be able to grow so that I may be able to combat the challenges that come ahead. I'm also continuing my Japanese lessons. It still goes slow for me, but I want to get up to a point where I can actually converse to people in Japanese and get deeper into other topics. God willing, I will be able to do so by the end of my first year!

Upcoming Events

We have a few more upcoming events for March. More student get togethers such as Ice Skating, an International Party and a talent night. So please pray for those events and wisdom on how we can reach out to the students. This is the last month before school starts, and we want to be able to use this time, now that students aren't busy with studying, to hang out and minister to them. Pray that Jesus reveals himself to them and opens their hearts to the gospel.

Prayer Requests
- For the new year and the things to come. We have many things planned for this year in J-house, but we are continuing to pray that God has his way with us and our plans to give him the all the glory in everything that we do.
- For the next month we are not on campus, for us to be able to make connections and spiritual encounters with the students, and that they may open up their eyes to gospel
- For those members in J-house to grow spiritually, there are still a lot of baby Christians in J-house, pray for spiritual growth and maturity in the Gospel and for those to put the Gospel first over everything.
- For a revolution in Japan! for spiritual eyes to be opened in Japan and that the 0.5% of christians will increase!

again I want to thank you all for supporting me in this venture, I hope that you continue to support the mission that is happening here. I appreciate everything that is being done to back my up and I want to assure you that I'm praying for everyone back home too! I also saw Jerry and Jasmines baby and that everything is well, Praise God! thanks for the updates! I have no pictures of anything last months, I failed to take any,  but I'll make it up to everyone next month! till next time! I actually would probably do good to invest in a good camera! this Iphone can only take me so far lol