Dear friend,
Thank you for being part of Mission Japan’s prayer network. We appreciate your support! Please read more about our new prayer requests here below.
God’s peace in Christ,
Stephan and family
We pray for the churches and the many Christian organizations who continue their committed involvement in serving the disaster area’s victims on a wide scale. We specifically remember Sakura House and Nozomi Center, with whom which Mission Japan was directly involved. We also pray for the full-time workers and the part-time volunteers who serve the people (especially the children) of the disaster area with Christian love and care.
More about this will follow in a next newsflash (also so that churches in South Africa and elsewhere can commemerate the disaster events, on Sunday March 8)
- Our shift to the RCJ Theological Seminary in Kobe (DV before the end of 2015)
- The planned visit of a group of young Japanese pastors to South Africa (in May 2015)
- The broadening diaconal involvement by the RCJ in South Africa
- Karen Strydom, who is a missionary candidate to Japan. She could – through this visit – get to know more about the core challenges in Japan, and she had opportunities to share the story of her own calling etc.
- The growing relationship of mutual trust between the RCJ and the DRC Family of Churches in South Africa
Stephan and Carina’s schedule for March (which includes):
Sunday 1:
Stephan preaches at RCJ Takamatsu-Higashi (church without a pastor); Carina and Miwa lead Happy Kids at RCJ Tokushima
Thursday 5 – Friday 6:
Stephan lectures on Pastoral Care and Counselling at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Kobe
Tuesday 10:
Stephan does a presentation on Pastoral Care at the RCJ Shikoku’s Presbytery fraternal
Sunday 15:
Carina and Miwa lead Happy Kids at RCJ Tokushima
Friday 20 – Saturday 21:
Stephan and Carina lead a Marriage Retreat for ministers and congregants of Shikoku Presbytery
Sunday 22:
Stephan preaches at the English Fellowship at RCJ Tokushima
Friday 27 – Saturday 28:
Shikoku Presbytery’s Church Camp is held in Okayama, where Stephan also participates.
Other preparations: Stephan leads a presentation at a meeting of about 200 women in the RCJ Presbytery of Tokyo region. It will be a pastoral perspective on main issues that impart meaning and hope within the current RCJ, and especially the essential role that women play in this (from October 2015, women will DV be ordained as elders and pastors in the RCJ).
