An Encouraging New Years Eve Email From Japan

Hello Friends, we received such an encouraging email on New Year’s Eve from our friend Kaoru from Japan who you may recall us requesting your prayers for this past spring. It’s not every day that we get to hear from those we’ve had a chance to minister to after returning from the U.K. to their home country, so it’s a special treat to share this with you. 

After meeting with Kaoru several times and him coming along to English classes and our Home Group Bible Study in the spring and summer, it became apparent that Kaoru was already a Christian, which was an encouraging surprise! We’re so thankful to hear from him about what an encouragement our ministry to him was while he was away from his home culture, wife, and children, and that he was able to pass his Japanese government service English exams with distinction. 

Please continue to pray for Kaoru, that he would continue to walk with Jesus while living in his home country of Japan, one of the world’s largest unreached people groups, where less than 0.6% of Japanese people are Bible believing Christians and Christian fellowship and good teaching can be very hard to find. Please also pray for his efforts to be promoted to a foreign service post with his government in the U.S., U.K., or other English speaking country, or that the Lord would give him more and greater opportunities to witness to his faith in Christ at home in Japan.

London's Cutest Evangelist

It’s been a very busy week for us here, with multiple Christmas party events, carol services, and even a funeral of a friend from seminary, but one of the of highlights of this week was getting to see Shanna Hymes Bean share her testimony and clearly present the Gospel to the ladies gathered for the Free English Classes women’s Christmas party on Wednesday morning at the church with women in attendance from Iran, Ukraine, Japan, and several other nationalities who do not have access to the Gospel in their home countries. I’m not often up there for the women’s class because some of the women come from cultures that discourage them from interacting with men outside of their family, but I had to go drop some things off at the church from our co-ed English Class Christmas Party the night before, and I just happened to walk in right as Shanna was getting up to give her talk and was able to snap a sneeky pic of my cute evangelist.

Please pray that the Holy Spirit would be at work among the ladies present for the Christmas Party to hear Shanna’s talk, and that many of them would come to one of the church’s four upcoming Christmas Carol Services over the next week to hear more about Jesus.

Thanksgiving in London

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone! We've had a busy few days of life and ministry between Home Group, a trip to York for Presbytery on Friday and Saturday, and a very full day at church yesterday, so sorry we're just now getting around to posting this. On Thursday evening our Home Group Bible Study celebrated a very international take on an American Thanksgiving Dinner with guests and dishes from around the world.

Even though Thanksgiving is celebrated in several countries other than just the U.S., including Canada and Brazil, the United Kingdom is not among them. In fact, many British people and many other nationalities often don't know much about Thanksgiving or why we celebrate it. So because of Thanksgiving's origins and orientation toward thanking God for the blessings in our lives, it’s a really great opportunity to talk about Jesus. Before dinner Dawson gave a very brief explanation of the origins of Thanksgiving and a short devotional from Psalm 100 before praying for our meal.

This Thanksgiving will be especially memorable for our family as we gathered together with our regular Home Group members as well as a few non-Christian friends who we’ve been getting to know and reaching out to from our Free English Classes outreach. Please continue to pray for our Home Group Bible Study and for our outreach to international friends through Free English Classes.

Please pray especially for non-Christian friends Parham (Iran), Adil (Pakistan), Benson (Hong Kong), Dmitri (Russia), and Francesco (Italy) as Dawson meets with them weekly to read and discuss the Gospel of Mark one to one. Please pray also for growing Christian friends who we are meeting with regularly as well for one to one discipleship, including Eduardo (Spain), Zuri (Brazil), Justin and Zuko (both from South Africa), Fenno (Kenya), Amirreza (Iran), Yuki (Japan), Prateek and David (both from India), Dawid (Poland), as well as many others, and that the Lord would continue to open doors for new opportunities for evangelism and discipleship through Free English Classes, church, Home Group, and the Ealing community.

2023 Year End Update

As we approach the end of 2022 and close out our first year in London, we wanted to post our year-end letter here for any who may not have received it already through post or email to give you a review of how the Lord has been at work over the past 12 months, and what our hopes, prayers, and needs are going into 2023. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and partnership this year, and wishing you all the best to you and yours in 2023!

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now." -Philippians 1:3-5