“What’s preventing you from believing in Jesus?” Takafumi is a college student who has come to church multiple times and I asked him this question over coffee the other day. We asked you to pray for him in our last letter and I can tell the Lord is definitely working on Takafumi’s heart. Please continue to pray for him to get saved!
August is a month when many people visit their families for Obon. Obon is much like the day of the dead in Latin American countries. People spend time with family as well as visit their ancestors’ graves. August also has festivals that are tied to shrines. All of this combines to create a spiritually dark atmosphere in Japan.
However, we had multiple first-time visitors come to our church during August! One was a mother visiting our area from a different part of Japan. She lives on the other side of the island that was severely affected by the 2011 earthquake and nuclear meltdown. Her sister lives near the church and has come a couple of times as well! We are excited about the new people the Lord continues to bring. Please pray for the Holy Spirit to work in their lives. We want to see souls saved!
This summer has been a hot one. One city in our prefecture recorded one of the highest temperatures in Japan this summer (40.3°C or 104.5°C). However, that was only for about a week and temperatures are now slowly falling.
During the last week of August, Rosie jumped back into language school. She has been doing very well with learning Japanese. Her growth is amazing. Silas is growing as well and is walking a little bit more each day.
On September 1st, we had a church BBQ. We were excited that multiple people returned and were there for the service. The message was a simple one about Jesus who came to call sinners to repentance in Mark 2. Please pray with us for the Lord to open the eyes of the people here!
On September 13th we will be taking our driver’s license exam here in Japan since we are currently both on international driver’s licenses. The test involves a written portion as well as a driving portion. For the driving portion, you are expected to memorize two possible routes and on the day of the test, they tell you which one to drive from memory.
Yours for Japan,
The Miyashita Family