Something to SMILE about

Students of Karuizawa Horizon International School perform SMILE during the retirement party for Kinji Sekiguchi. Watch Yuina in the middle for more smiles. [watch on YouTube]

卒業式Graduation Ceremony

Today Ellissa officially became a 10th grader and Julina a 7th grader in the Japanese school system. Middle school is 7th-9th grade and High school is 10th-12th grade. We celebrated their graduation ceremony with wonderful tacos for lunch because that's how we roll. They have two weeks Spring Break before the new term starts at Horizon International School.
[view photos on PicasaWeb]

主の園のように

Ellissa and Kellen played a duet on the piano as special music during English worship at Karuizawa International Fellowship. We first heard this song while volunteering in Iwaki City a year ago and have been playing it in Japanese church ever since. Lyrics and sheet music by Japanese Christian group GROWING UP can be downloaded here.
[watch on YouTube]

Tohoku Celebration Draws Record Crowd

Close to 12,000 people poured into the Grande 21 Arena last weekend after snow that blanketed the area Friday began to melt and the sun burst forth. Nearly 900 others watched from satellite locations elsewhere in Japan. More than 400 people made commitments to Jesus over three days.
[read full article on BillyGraham.org]

Levitating House Stands Still in Quake

While Japan continues to rebuild after last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami, one company has developed an ingenious new method to protect homes from the shaking—let them ride it out on a cushion of air. Air Danshin Systems Inc. has can retrofit existing houses to levitate them in the event of an earthquake. 88 homes in Japan are set to receive the new technology soon.
[read more] [watch video on YouTube]

Care Package

We received a care package delivery from First Christian Church in Kissimmee today. Thanks so much to our sending church for keeping us well-stocked with Mac-n-Cheese and other goodies! We love you all!!
[watch on YouTube]

New Yellow Belts

We're proud of the 12 students who tested and passed their test for yellow belt in Garry's Taekwondo class at Horizon International School in Karuizawa. Students learn discipline, self control, respect and confidence all the while having fun and making new friends. It is our desire to see this program continue to grow, creating new outreach opportunities in the community later this year. Please pray God would continue to bless this ministry.

Children sing Psalm 1 in Japanese

This performance of Shu no oshie wo yorokobi toshi (Psalm 1) was recorded at Megumi Chalet during Horizon Chapel Tokyo's winter celebration. [watch on YouTube]

Tohoku Churches planted in Street View

Google has updated their Street View feature of their popular online mapping application to include more recent views of the devastation in the Tohoku area of Japan. They drove over 44,000 kilometers of affected regions, in the quest to capture 360-degree panoramic imagery of the affected areas. If you want to, the same images can also be viewed over at a special website called “Build the Memory,” letting you compare before and after shots of the towns which were affected by the mind-numbing events. For folks who want to experience the maximum effect, just start off inland and venture in the general direction of the coast – see how the idyllic countryside changes dramatically in time. Pictured above is the Be One House where Chad Huddleston and family moved in November to facilitate a church planting network in Ishinomaki, literally right around the corner from where we did cleanup a week after the tsunami. Please continue to keep the Huddlestons, all the volunteers and those touched by their efforts lifted up in prayer that the Spirit would continue to move in miraculous ways.
[Google Maps]

Who Led You To Christ?

I look for little things to confirm God's will. Like mile markers along the way, they serve to remind us of God's provision. One such event was our Japanese pastor Nishioka coincidentally meeting the American man who introduced him to Christ over 10 years ago while he was in college. We came together to the CPI church planting conference in Hakone, Japan. David Mills led a small Bible study in San Francisco for foreign students, of which Nishioka Sensei was one. Now David has come to Japan as a church planter himself and lives in Yokohama. Join with us in praying for both of their faithful continued service of our LORD.

Nagano to Fukushima

Garry got to have lunch with Kobayashi-san and Eiko-san today. Afterwards, we went shopping for more food items to send back with Ikapi-san who was returning to Iwaki tonight. We filled his car with bags of rice, instant noodles, diapers, and other goods still not available in areas as far north as Iwate. Teams from Iwaki continue to make trips to Iwate Prefecture to provide relief items. We are blessed to have such a great network of Christians across Japan. Continue to pray for the several dozen new churches being planted in the disaster areas.

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.

Arigatou From Japan

Check out the website http://arigatofrom.jp/ to see Japanese people saying thank you in many different languages to those who've shown support during their recovery from the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake.

Ishinomaki Cleanup

Team Expansion missionaries to Japan Nicki Shields, Weiling and Garry Kline, and Chad Huddleston, among a ton of other volunteers from all over Japan came together in Ishinomaki on the 3-month anniversary of the Tohoku Earthquake to do some serious cleanup and put together a kids festival for the locals affected by the tsunami that devastated this area on March 11, 2011.
[watch video on YouTube]

Cleanup in Ishinomaki

Nicki Shields and Weiling had fun shoveling sludge in Ishinomaki with Chad Huddleston and a team of volunteers from Kobe. Praise God. This just happened to be right across the street from the place we searched for a Japanese woman at the request of her Japanese pastor on our first trip to Ishinomaki. While we were there, I talked with another neighbor about their situation. She was so encouraged about our presence. They continue to need food and water and Chad's team is doing a great job meeting the needs of the people. If your group wants to work in the area, please let us know.

Today we got to visit with Betty Turner and her family and many Christians who helped the Machida Christ Church in Tokyo celebrate its 30th anniversary. Betty and her husband worked with the Pratts who started this church in 1981. Her son Tim Turner is now the resident pastor of this growing congregation. Our prayer is for their continued growth and for a successful Bible camp being held in our area this summer.

Churches Helping Churches

I spent the better part of the nine days in Sendai sitting in front of a computer developing a website to connect churches in need with organizations providing relief. Though my work has already been passed to a Japanese agency to manage going forward, I lamented the fact that I didn't spend more time 'on the ground' helping people. I was pleasantly surprised, as I watched the video above with all the people we spent a lot of time together from Churches Helping Churches and the CRASH Japan team, to see myself ... away from the computer. I'm reminded of 1 Corinthians 12:27 "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."
It is my desire to use the gifts that God has given me to bring glory to Him, but I mustn't nitpick how God uses me. It would be prideful to think otherwise and I ask God to forgive my selfish ambition wanting to have a more visible role to play. Please pray that, as people bring relief to Japan, there would be no selfish motivation behind it and that they would serve God with a clear conscience.
[watch video on YouTube]

Emergency Supply Distribution

Here is a brief look at what our team did in partnership with Samaritan's Purse and CRASH Japan serving the churches in the earthquake and tsunami regions of Tohoku. Please continue to pray for the grief stricken, the hurting, the lonely and all of the volunteers united in bringing the hope and love of Christ to Japan.

[watch the video on YouTube]

Tohoku Help

Last night, we met with 30 area pastors to discuss the needs and how our Christian efforts can rally together to meet those needs immediately. I, along with a team of helpers, will be building a website where churches will be able to post their needs and where organizations can work directly with them to help. This is a huge undertaking and one for which I need God's strength and wisdom to accomplish. Ellissa is working as a volunteer to load and unload supply trucks that come to the MeySen Academy storehouse which is the central distribution point for this area. Our spirits are high as we see the fruit of this labor of love.

Katsumi-san's Baptism

Many missionaries' prayers were answered as a result of Katsumi-san being baptized in the river in front of our language school in Karuizawa, Japan. This bilingual video is her testimony of a transformed life because of Christ's grace. Thanks to the several dozen families, friends, missionaries, and neighbors who came out to support her public step of obedience. Thanks also to the many people around the world who have been praying for her!
[YouTube video] [Photo gallery]