We started this journey in November of 2007 with just a small vision of how God might be calling us to serve in a missionary capacity in Japan. Now, just 20 months later, we've received the official "thumbs up"from our field coordinator David Atkin to make final preparations to move to Japan this August. We owe it all to God and the amazing faithfulness of our prayer warrior team who've supported us and gone beyond the call of duty to ensure we're fully equipped. Team Expansion requires a minimum of 100 prayer warriors, and given the economy, we felt better putting more emphasis on building a strong prayer support network than asking outright for money. It is so hard to ask people and churches that are cutting their missions support to partner with us, but it is easy to ask people to pray for us. To date, we have over 650 prayer partners and we know for a fact that we would not be where we are without each of them lifting us up on a regular basis. We've heard it said that, "money is important because it gets you to the field, but it is a strong prayer network that keeps you on the field." May we never take that fact for granted. It is a spiritual battle we all face. Temptation and disappointment abound where vision and a strong relationship with God are in question. Our prayer is that our relationship with God and the vision He's given us for Japan would increase, not decrease. Thank you for continuing to keep us in your thoughts, and particularly asking that the Holy Spirit would soften the hearts of the Japanese so that they might receive the Gospel with all readiness.
