Japanese group
Posted: October 10th, 2007, 9:22 pm
It was exciting Wednesday at WWC. We have been working with the Japanese wife of a U.S. Navy dentist who ministers to a group of young Japanese wives of U.S. Marines, These are mostly girls/ladies in their very early 20's or younger, some with babies, and they speak little or no English. They are precious gals. Most of them are married to lower-rank Marines (E3's - E4's) who are at K-Bay to be deployed to Iraq, at which time these ladies will be LEFT HERE with little support structure, non-existent communication options, and not much income. The lady we are dealing with is a wee bit quirky, but loves these girls and really ministers to them.
She has bought, with her own money, a Japanese Bible (equivalent to an NIV) and a Japanese language "Purpose Driven Life" at a combined cost of over $100/person with shipping. She holds a weekly Bible Study for them, at which she buys and prepares Japanese foods, etc. for them. They had approached several churches in Kailua, and all wanted to RENT them a room for that study. We, of course, jumped at the chance to offer them the free use of the multi-purpose room for their meeting and today was the first day. There were seven ladies (+ the leader and her daughter) and some babies, and Amy and I were able to sort of greet them and smile and nod a lot. (I made them laugh when the leader asked if I knew any Japanese, and I said one phrase only: "nani in tendo" which basically means "What are YOU looking at!??)
I got one of my Japanese-fluent members on the phone and had him extend a welcome and greeting in Japanese on speaker phone, much to their delight.
Here's the best part. They had one first-timer join the group today, and she accepted Christ in the meeting!
We just feel that God may be opening a new door for us, and we are cautiously easing toward it. I have asked one of our Japanese-fluent guys to pray about serving in an undershepherd role for this group if they follow through and start attending WWC as we have discussed. We will need to secure a low-power FM transmitter for translation and a few other details, but if it is God's direction we're in. We now have at least three people who are very fluently bi-lingual English/Japanese, and several who speak a few phrases.
Who knows where God may take this? Exciting!
She has bought, with her own money, a Japanese Bible (equivalent to an NIV) and a Japanese language "Purpose Driven Life" at a combined cost of over $100/person with shipping. She holds a weekly Bible Study for them, at which she buys and prepares Japanese foods, etc. for them. They had approached several churches in Kailua, and all wanted to RENT them a room for that study. We, of course, jumped at the chance to offer them the free use of the multi-purpose room for their meeting and today was the first day. There were seven ladies (+ the leader and her daughter) and some babies, and Amy and I were able to sort of greet them and smile and nod a lot. (I made them laugh when the leader asked if I knew any Japanese, and I said one phrase only: "nani in tendo" which basically means "What are YOU looking at!??)
I got one of my Japanese-fluent members on the phone and had him extend a welcome and greeting in Japanese on speaker phone, much to their delight.
Here's the best part. They had one first-timer join the group today, and she accepted Christ in the meeting!
We just feel that God may be opening a new door for us, and we are cautiously easing toward it. I have asked one of our Japanese-fluent guys to pray about serving in an undershepherd role for this group if they follow through and start attending WWC as we have discussed. We will need to secure a low-power FM transmitter for translation and a few other details, but if it is God's direction we're in. We now have at least three people who are very fluently bi-lingual English/Japanese, and several who speak a few phrases.
Who knows where God may take this? Exciting!