VVV OSAKA
DIRECT VVV Oct
30th, 2002, No. 2
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the
second edition of Osaka
Direct!
If this is the first Osaka Direct that
you have received, then we want to welcome you to this mailing list.
You can see last month's Osaka Direct on
our web site at www.proverbs2525.org. If
for any reason you do not want to receive future editions of Osaka
Direct, we will be happy to remove you from the list. This
month we have made some changes to the underlying photo formats that we
hope will solve display problems experienced by some of you last month.
However, please drop us a note if the photos do not display correctly, or
if there are other problems. If you remember to tell us what software
you are using, that will help us in troubleshooting.
October has
been a busy month for us and we need your prayers as we face a variety of new
challenges. Please continue to lift us and the ministry here up in
prayer. And, we do hope that you enjoy this edition of Osaka
Direct.
God bless you!
October News
Osaka International
Church
This is the biggest new challenge that
the Lord has brought us this month. We live very close to Osaka
International Church (OIC), a congregation of about 100 members from many
different countries, and had visited there several times since
coming to Osaka. Dan had even spoken there as a guest speaker once. Well,
three weeks ago the pastor of this church resigned and the congregation was
suddenly left without a minister. The church council decided to
call us and ask for help in this time of crisis; and we felt like the Lord
would have so do what we could to help. So, Dan now has the pulpit every
Sunday and is in discussions with the church council about helping in
other ways. The picture above shows Dan explaining how when the
storms of life threaten to overwhelm us and we feel like we are just barely
hanging on; then we need to make sure that our feet are firmly planted on the
Solid Rock of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Agape
International Christian Fellowship
At the beginning of this
month, we had the joyous opportunity to visit PastorTakeshi's
church which meets in the dance room at a community center (photo above).
PastorTakeshi
is a wonderful new friend who shares a vision for planting churches. We
have been getting to know each other and exploring the possibility of working
together on some things. We enjoyed our visit with this growing
congregation greatly and Dan also had the opportunity to visit one of
the church's home groups as well (photo below).
Many Japanese
feel the need for Something Spiritual
As we get to know the city, we cannot
help but notice again and again how many Japanese people seek for something
beyond materialism in various ways. The picture above shows a Buddhist
monk with a begging bowl. You can't see it in the picture, but the
Starbuck's Coffee shop on the second floor of the shopping center behind him
gave the overall scene a surreal contrast. As they worry about what
the future may hold, many Japanese turn to all kinds of fortune telling,
trying to get some kind of feeling of security regardless of the source.
The picture below shows booths with young couples getting their fortunes told
to see if their relationship will be successful.
The City never sleeps and sometimes we don't either
The volume of
traffic on the street in front of our apartment building drops off after
midnight, but that doesn't mean that it stays quite and peaceful all night.
Several times a night ambulance or fire truck sirens scream for attention and
once there was a fight outside at 4:40 in the morning and Dan had to call the
police. The picture above (taken from our balcony) shows fire trucks
gathered at a nearby building early one morning. We are
continually reminded that this is a BIG city with tremendous needs of every
kind. Still, there are some peaceful moments in the day; the picture
below shows the pleasant view out the window where we ate lunch one day.
Friendly Faces
Even in the middle of crowded city, there
are a lot of friendly people. We met the man pictured above one evening
when we were visiting the Dotonbori
district with a missionary friend. We had fun talking with him and
were able to give him a New Testament before saying goodbye.
The Children
The picture below shows some young
girls visiting with the rescue dogs at a fund raising event. And
the one below that shows children listening to a Bible story at Pastor Takeshi's
church. Only a tiny percentage of the children have any chance at all
to hear about Jesus; we pray that the Lord might show us effective ways to
reach out to them and their families.
Osaka Cell Church
Plant: Project and Budget Milestone
On October 20th
the Osaka Cell Church Plant marked a paperwork milestone when our
mission agency, Mission to Unreached Peoples (MUP), completed the review of
our project proposal and gave formal approval to the Osaka Cell Church as
a MUP project. The project code OCCJ1 was assigned and then we
transferred $25,000 from our missionary support account and started an
additional automatic monthly transfer of $1,000 a month to the new OCCJ1
account. What does all of this mean?
(1) It means that the Osaka
Cell Church has an initial financial base in place and that the project
will have good visibility, detailed accountability, and solid
support within MUP.
(2) It means that, thanks to
your generous support, the Osaka Cell Church plant already has about
half of the funds needed for budget year 2003. Thank you and
praise the Lord!
(3) It means that you may designate future
financial gifts as specifically for the Osaka Cell Church Plant (Project
OCCJ1) if you desire to do so. Unlike funds given in general support of
the ministry here, funds designated for the project cannot be used for
other purposes (e.g. conferences, language study, etc).
Our Japanese web
site, www.thinkword.com was
launched October 1st
Thinkword.com
is a pre-evangelistic web site for making contacts with Japanese people
seeking spiritual answers, or just looking for a friend. The site
content is fairly limited at this time, but it is growing. Right now,
thinkword mostly features pictures of us and information about us, plus a
verse of the day and Dan's daily Japanese-language diary entry.
Links to more developed Japanese language evangelistic sites and to online
Japanese Bibles are also included. Other content will be added
gradually in order to make the site more attractive and informative.
If you have Japanese fonts on your computer, then you should definitely
check it out.
Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
(1) Praise the Lord for good progress on preparations
and funding for the cell church plant.
(2) Praise the Lord for the opportunity to minister
to the Osaka International Church in their time of need.
(3) Pray that the Lord would send His Holy Spirit to
open the eyes of Japanese people involved in fortune telling and false belief
systems and that He would soften their hearts to accept His Son,
Jesus.
(4) Pray that the Lord would give the Osaka
International Church leadership wisdom for dealing with the difficult
situation they are now in.
(5) Pray for Ida as she continues her
preparations for coming to Osaka next year to join the minister here.
(7) Pray for the Lord to provide every needful thing
for the Father's House church short-term team that is coming next summer.
(8) Pray that the Lord would use thinkword.com for
His glory. Pray that Dan would have the energy and diligence to update
the site daily with a new verse of the day and diary entry.
We hope that you have enjoyed this edition
of Osaka Direct and
we invite you to share it with your friends. If anyone wants to be added
to (or removed from) the Osaka
Direct mailing list, just let
us know.
Your comments on how we can improve this, or any of our communications, are
invited. God bless you!
In Jesus' love,
Dan and Karen Ellrick
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