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After a very hectic October and November, we’ve finally moved to the place where we plan to live during our service in Japan: Yamaguchi Prefecture. Thank you for answering the call in our last newsletter to pray for our speaking appointments and move across the country — God blessed abundantly, and we are so glad to finally be living in Yamaguchi. Here’s a taste of how things went after our last Japanese intensive course ended on October 25:
- On the first Sabbath, Michael joined a high-school student in doing special music at the local conference church.
- The next week contained the beginning of packing, wrapping up loose ends at our language school, and Michael writing a sermon in Japanese. Along with the sermon, we both had to prepare our testimonies for an SDA youth event held in Chiba prefecture. On Sabbath, Michael preached at a church south of Yokohama, and then we traveled to the youth event to share our testimonies that evening.
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Celebrating with some of our teachers after completing language school.
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- During the week of November 12, Michael provided morning worship for the Japan Union Conference workers. We also recorded a video of the testimonies we gave at the Chiba youth event for an online vespers program. That Friday, we went back to Chiba to help run an English Bible camp along with another SDA couple from the USA and several workers at the local SDA schools. Our focus for the Bible camp was encouraging the students to read and understand the Bible for themselves and to also get in the habit of reading the Bible on a regular basis. Participants included a mix of middle and high school students.
- We did some Discovery Bible Studies with them, talked with them about how to read the Bible, and answered many questions. Even though the Bible camp was held in a second language for all the participants, God blessed the experience, and the feedback we received from the students showed that it was a transformative time for them.
- The week of November 17 was our final week to move out of our current home! We spent many long hours cleaning and packing. There is a company here that ships suitcases, duffel bags, boxes and the like. We essentially put all our belongings back into our suitcases and duffel bags, along with a few boxes for items we’ve obtained since then, and shipped them off! It was both convenient and cost-effective, and everything arrived in two days. Hiroko, our platinum missionary, was already in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and she helped to coordinate the arrival of our bags at our Yamaguchi living location. We had a lot of help getting “out the door” of Yokohama, and we’re so grateful!
- After all our things were shipped off, we headed to the cities of Shizuoka and Fujieda, where Michael preached at Shizuoka SDA Church. We shared during Sabbath School preliminaries and spent time with one of our friends in the area who is a pastor. We probably spoke and listened to Japanese more in a short period of time that weekend than ever before!
- From November 24 through 26, we stayed at a hotel in Osaka and visited cultural sites in both Osaka and Kyoto for project research. We also had an opportunity to visit Sarah (June 2022 newsletter), who we first met around Southern Adventist University and who has now returned to Japan. We spent time catching up, encouraging one another, and sharing testimonies of how God has been leading.
- Finally, the day before Thanksgiving, we arrived in Yamaguchi Prefecture!
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Saying goodbye to our good friends at the pizzeria near our old home.
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Now that we have arrived in Yamaguchi, we are working through all the normal things that happen after a move: unpacking, figuring out logistics of where to go shopping, and submitting all the address change and mail forwarding forms to the post office, bank, city halls, phone company, and internet company. [If you’re curious, we are now on the hunt for healthful bread and/or bread-making ingredients again. (See June 2024 newsletter.) We did find carrot bread, but that didn’t seem quite like the taste of what we were wanting!]
We are also keeping our eyes peeled for opportunities to get to know community members and make friends in the area. We need to continue learning the Japanese language to a more fluent level, and we need friends and others to practice conversing with in Japanese outside of any formal learning that we do. Please be praying for us to make connections in Yamaguchi and to continue to grow in our language ability and walk with Christ.
Yamaguchi Prefecture has nearly 1.3 million people living in an area of about 6,000 km2 (2,317 miles2), but it only has around 20-25 SDA members — about 0.002% of the population. There are two small SDA churches. However, many towns and several cities have no known Adventist presence. We desire to see Yamaguchi prefecture filled with SDA groups, both large and small, meeting on a regular basis to worship and share the love of Christ with their communities. We hope to see this movement in Yamaguchi spread outside of the prefecture and into the rest of Japan — and with God’s help, we believe this will happen!
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Praises & Prayer Requests
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- We’re so glad to have finally made our move out west! Thank you so much for your prayers.
- Please be praying that we will settle in well, find the stores and items we need, and be able to get into a positive, healthy routine.
- Six years ago, Michael gave a Bible to someone traveling through Cambodia. Recently, Michael had the chance to see her and one of her kids again as they are now living in Japan. A story for another time!
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We would love to hear back from you. You can email us at adventure@shoesatthedoor.net. We are happy to pray for any prayer requests you might have, so please feel free to send them our way.
Thank you so much for your support!
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