Want to Know Your Spiritual Gifts?

When you have accepted Jesus and are baptized, the presence of his Holy Spirit equips the believer with special gifts to be used for glorifying God. These skills can include increased faith, a strong desire to serve, teaching or discernment, among a number of others. Take this free online survey to find out how God has equipped you to better serve His Kingdom:
http://www.spiritualgiftstest.com/

Your responses to each of 12 categories are instantly tabulated. Post your comment to tell us what your 3 highest rated gifts are.

[Spiritual Gifts Test]

Fukushima to Nagano

We enjoyed spending time with many Japanese Christians at Mikio-san's house. Ikapi-san made his monthly journey from Iwaki to Saku and shared with us his most recent trip into the 10km evacuation zone around the nuclear plant in Fukushima. You can watch his video here. In this photo, many hands make light work of sending out Ikapi's gospel radio program on CDs being mailed all across Japan. Pray his ministry continues to encourage people. We also used this opportunity to promote the CPI church planting conference coming up in November.

Japanese Students Baptized in Karuizawa River

Joseph, Emmanuel, and Jim, Japanese students at SYME, are baptized upon their confession of Jesus as their Savior in the Karuizawa river.
[watch the video on YouTube]

全地よほめよ All of Creation Praises Him

Garry joined his ukulele teacher during a live performance at Apple's Live Theater on Church Street in Karuizawa. They sang Zen chi yo home yo, a worship song that Garry has been practicing in order to lead worship. It was a wonderful chance to remind people that our purpose in life is to praise God. The lyrics originated from Psalm 148:2-3
[watch video on YouTube]

Here are the English lyrics from this Hillsong classic:

Praise Him you heavens and all that’s above
Praise Him you angels and heavenly hosts
Let the whole earth praise Him

Praise Him the sun moon and bright shining stars
Praise Him you heavens and waters and skies
Let the whole earth praise Him

Chorus:
Great in power, great in glory
Great in mercy, King of heaven
Great in battle, great in wonder
Great in Zion, King over all the earth

Japanese lyrics:

てんにあるものすべて
ばんぐん の主のみつかいよ
ぜーんちーよーほめよ

つき よほしよたいよう
そらようみようちゅうよ
ぜーんちーよーほめよ

Chorus:
いーだーいーなー ちーかーらーとー
えーいーこーうー 王ーなるイエースに
しょーうーりーとー きーせーきーはー
シーオーンーのー 王ーイエスにーあり

Betty Knows Best

Thanks to the Florida Christian Convention booth we had earlier this year, we were able to connect with Betty Turner for lunch. She served as a missionary in Japan for nearly 30 years! She shared many great stories about the struggles and the victories she and her husband Bill had overseas. Had it not been for little Timmy's allergies to the heat of the Philippines, they might never have moved to Japan in the first place. Tim has since gone on to pastor Machida Church where we visited with Phil and Kim during our vision trip. Betty nowadays spends time between caring for her grandson suffering from cerebral palsy and her husband who is in hospice. She is a God's girl with a great big heart and is a gifted teacher as you'll see in the video below. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to see an old-school missionary mom sharing her secrets to learning Japanese Kanji. Betty tries to visit Japan once a year, but it's becoming more difficult. Please be in prayer that God would continue to pour out His Spirit in her life and that she may continue to be a great encouragement to others. That's Seasons 52 restaurant in Orlando if you're interested in healthy dining.

Visit from Team Expansion HQ

We were delighted Emily Heeringa paid us a visit on her recent journey to Florida. When she's not keeping tabs on Team Expansion's 300+ missionaries from her office in Louisville, KY, she makes a point of visiting them in the field. Following her adventure to the local IKEA store to stock up on lingenberries, we had pizza together and enjoyed watching The Bucketlist, a movie highlighted in Gene Appel's sermon last weekend at Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, CA. This visit demonstrated yet again just how small the world becomes the more people you get to know. Pray for Emily's continued success with Team Expansion and that her future endeavors would be blessed.

First Christian of Marion

On our quest to find a Bank of America ATM to make a deposit, we happened upon a First Christian Church in the city of Marion north of Union Mills. We attended Sunday morning service and were excited with our experience. Everybody was friendly and the message was powerful. The end of the service concluded with an anointing with oil to bless our family and protect us on our mission. Pastor Don was gracious enough to take us out to lunch at a most excellent barbecue buffet. He also invited us back for their quarterly Western North Carolina Evangelizing Church meeting Monday night where dinner would be served and extended us an opportunity to share more about our mission. We graciously accepted and dinner was outstanding. You can't beat Southern cooking and hospitality. Weiling and I spoke for about 10 minutes and the board made the decision to send us a check to offset the preparation costs. What an unexpected blessing! God is good - ALL THE TIME.