Dear Beloved in Christ and Partner in the Gospel,
How are you? We’d love to hear how God is working in your life and know how best to pray for you!
These past couple of months have been filled for us with team care, joyful visits to some our partnering churches as well as ongoing care for John’s father who continues to recover from health issues. However, In this letter I want to highlight how God has been giving us clarity in both our daily calling of walking with Christ as a family and also our long-term calling as church planters in Tokyo.
To be honest, our last term in Tokyo was not an easy one. In some ways, ministry prospered as we were blessed to see a church started in our home and many begin to walk with Jesus! In other ways, I (Jo Beth) struggled through sleep deprivation and fatigue as we cared for two small children in the midst of team meetings, church in our home, evangelistic outreach and Bible studies. This home-assignment has been a time of restoration while building up our network of counsel and ministry partnerships—but still the question niggled, isn’t there a way we can continue in ministry AND thrive as a family?
Our approach to corporate worship, in particular, was often a point of contention. Though we structured our time with intentionality, we gradually realized that the lengthy format was not sustainable for us as a family with small children—starting with dinner, followed by fellowship and in-depth study until 10 or 11pm. While this offered a rich time of study and sharing, John and I spent half the night doing children’s church with Brooke and Bonnie and putting them to bed. This left us feeling divided between the needs of the church and our children, choosing one or the other. Last October, we left for home assignment confident the church would be cared for by our teammates Shige and Michiyo but burdened by the unresolved tension between family and ministry needs.
Now meeting in the home of Michiyo Ishida
Our hope upon return to Japan has been to explore new avenues of making Small Church accessible to families. If Small Church was such a struggle for us as full-time missionaries, how could we hope to see Japanese families thrive as lay leaders—let alone start new groups? We wrestled with this issue and even seriously considered, has God called us to continue?
As John wrestled with this question, God called him to focus on our daily family devotions. Leading us through Mark and 1 Samuel, John searched for ways to make following Jesus accessible to our whole family. We began reading a passage each morning and asking only three questions: “What is this about?” “What do you like or not like about the passage?” and “What might God be trying to teach us?” John challenged me to begin studying the passages ahead of time so we could help the girls through the concepts together. We were delighted to see our girls begin to respond, sometimes coming up with applications that encouraged our own walks with Christ. And slowly we thought, yes…this might work for families in Tokyo.
As we tested this new approach to family devotions, God was giving us opportunities on home assignment to reach out to some families in the neighborhood. It all began with inviting neighbors to join Brooke and John fishing and eventually became a family-oriented group. One chilly night in October, children, parents and singles gathered around a bonfire to share about what God was doing their lives, share prayer requests and pray for one another. Brooke, Bonnie and other youth joined in praying for one another and for the adults in the room. Something for which we had longed was happening before our eyes: children engaged in small group life alongside their parents.
Around this time, John came to me one morning and exclaimed, “I was preparing last night for family devotions, and…I think God may be confirming our calling to Tokyo!” He was radiant as he shared the details of the Holy Spirit ministering to his heart through God’s Word. We rejoiced together how God used our little bit of faithfulness in leading our family and reaching out in our community to affirm our calling and give us a vision for ministry that might be passed on to Japanese families.
There is one big caveat: if the Lords wills! We believe this vision for ministry to families is from the Lord and will walk in obedience until he directs us otherwise, but we dare not trust methods instead of Him.
Your prayers for us from the past few years are still being answered today. Please continue to pray for us as we prepare for the next season of ministry in Japan.
