As we entered this year, we decided to rethink some of the church events hosted at Hope Baptist Church in Niigata. We decided to try doing a food-based event about once a month, and we have been seeing some good results.
One food we made was Oden. This is a traditional Japanese dish that people often eat in the winter. We had a man come to church for the first time in his life because of this. We also had a Valentines Event which we used as a time to get people to the church and tell them about the love God shows through Jesus Christ. As a result, we had more first-time visitors, including one of the students from the local high school that I have been volunteering at. It was exciting to see some results from that!
We also had a new man come to the church on a recent Sunday night. He was interested in Christianity and had been exploring religion for a little bit. I just started our four-week Bible Basics course with him.
On the first Sunday night of March, we held another food event at the church. We had a total of 17 adults and 7 kids that evening for the service. For several of those people, it was the first time in their life that they had been to a church service!
Thank you to those of you who have reached out to us about our safety concerning the coronavirus outbreak. While people and businesses are taking extra precautions, most daily life is normal. The national government asked schools to close, and some have complied. However, students still have held their graduation ceremonies (the academic calendar is different here, so people typically end the school year in March and begin the school year in April). While there have been a few inconveniences, people are starting to question all the fuss. We hope that by the time our next prayer letter comes out, things will be completely settled down.
Yours for Japan,
James, Rosie, Silas, and ???