VVV OSAKA
DIRECT VVV December
30th, 2002
Dan, Karen and Toru,
a new friend.
Dear Friends,
We hope
that you have enjoyed a wonderful celebration of the birthday of our Lord
Jesus during this Christmas season and we do pray that the Lord will
bless you with a Happy New Year. We have had a blessed Christmas
and things have generally been going well, although we had a small
scare when Karen was involved in an accident on December 15th. We
sent the news about the accident to everyone in a special prayer request
email, so I won't repeat the details now, but I do want to assure you
that Karen is fine. She was not hospitalized at all, but simply
treated and released, with some follow-up appointments to make sure nothing
was missed. Now, she is back almost completely to normal, with only a
few minor aches and pains remaining.
We
have had a busy month (as always?), so check out the December
News below to see what we have been up to and what the Lord has
been doing here. We do hope that you enjoy this month's Osaka
Direct.
December News
Ayauta Visit
Karen took
this picture of Dan and fellow MUP missionary Dawn Birkner during our visit
to her new church plant, Ayauta Christ Church, on the island of Shikoku.
Dawn joined our MUP Japan team
a little over a year ago and she has been quick to jump
directly into church planting. She is working in partnership with some
very experienced missionaries from The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) and
is doing well. We visited Dawn to see the new church plant and to help
with distributing tracts and invitations for special Christmas events.
We were also able to help her in getting to know some of the town
officials at the city office; in particular, we had a nice visit with
the chairman of the Board of Education. He seemed very
suspicious of us at first, since the town of Ayauta has never had a church
before and he was worried that we might be some strange cult group.
But after we had talked for a while he relaxed and seemed genuinely
glad to meet us. We were even able to discuss the possibility of Dawn
visiting some of the schools in town in the future for cultural
exchange events.
Christmas
Tract Distribution
A Taxi Driver
reads the Christmas Tract.
As mentioned above, while visiting with Dawn in Ayauta we passed out Christmas
tracts. It was exciting to see how well-received the tracts were in
this small town. Where we live in the city, only a small
percentage of the people who receive tracts read them, but in the little
country town of Ayauta, many people immediately began reading the tracts
when they received them. While we were passing out tracts at the
local train station, I knocked on the window of the taxi cab and gave a
tract to the driver. As you can see in the picture, this
large-format tract was read immediately. May the Lord touch the
hearts of these people with the Christmas message in these tracts.
Rainbow Club Christmas
Party
Rainbow Club
Christmas Party at Fukushima Cho Church
Dan
returned to Hiroshima to host a Saturday afternoon Christmas party for the
Rainbow Club kids and their moms. Even though we have moved to Osaka
for work here, we continue to stay connected with the church we worked with
in Hiroshima over the last six years. It was great to see Pastor
Nagashima and other friends and the party was a lot of fun too!
Christmas Decorations Everywhere!
Christmas
decorations at a Pachinko Parlor and a Christmas Cake
Few Japanese
have ever heard the true story of our Lord Jesus' birth, but Japanese
have whole-heartedly adopted Christmas trees and Santa Claus. Even
pachinko parlors (pachinko is a sort of cross between slot machines and
pinball machines) get into the act, and the one shown in the picture is
covered with Christmas decorations. Colorfully decorated
Christmas cakes are also must-have items for parents to take home and eat
with the kids. (We are still wondering where the Christmas Cake
tradition comes from?) Yet, all of this Christmas celebration has
little or no connection to the reason for the season. Department
stores stock all kinds of Christmas trees and ornaments, but nothing
with Jesus' name on it or any indication that Christmas is a Christian
holiday. The same is true for the decorations everywhere: plenty of
Santa Clauses, but no nativity scenes. There is also a strong
tendency to dress other people/things in Santa Claus suits. We
have seen department store sales clerks, KFC's Colonel Sanders, animal
statues, and even a Buddha statue dressed as Santa Claus this season.
One bright spot of light in the midst of this is that Christmas music,
including Silent Night and other carols, are played throughout the
season in many department stores. Now, if people would just
listen to the words and get the message!
Christmas at the
Osaka International Church
Speaking of
Christmas music, the Christmas choir at the Osaka International Church (OIC)
put on a delightful presentation during the regular Sunday service and the
special Christmas Eve service. During the Christmas potluck we even
sang Silent Night in eight different languages! The church was packed
to overflowing throughout the Christmas season and Dan is encouraging the
church council to begin a second Sunday morning service soon. Dan
is now officially the interim pastor at OIC and will probably serve
for a year or more since the church will not be able to afford to pay a
regular pastor for some time due to the financial decisions of the previous
pastor who resigned in September. Below, a young Japanese
boy lights the center candle (with a little help from Dad) in the
Advent wreath on Christmas Eve. OIC has members from many
countries, but over half of the congregation is Japanese, including some
families.
Budounoki
(Grapevine) Cell Church
The New
Grapevine Cell Church Logo
with the name
in Japanese Writing
We have
picked a name! Naming a new church plant is like naming a baby - a
very difficult process, the results of which will be with you and others for
a long time. But we have finally, prayerfully and carefully,
taken the plunge. The new church will be the Budounoki Seru Chaachi,
or in English, Grapevine Cell Church. This name is based on John 15:5,
where Jesus proclaims, "I am the vine, and you are the branches.
Those who remain in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for you can do
nothing without me." (English Bibles simply say "vine",
but Japanese Bibles say "grapevine".) Japanese
friends helped with the naming and they say that this name has a very
friendly sound in Japanese because of the reference to nature. We
like the name because we think the Scripture reference will help people
to remember that the cell church is about helping people
to get connected to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
(1) Pray that the Lord would give us wisdom for selecting
cell meeting locations.
(2) Praise the Lord that
He is raising up a number of short-term workers to help with this
ministry next summer.
(3) Pray that the Lord would send His Holy Spirit
to soften the hearts of the people of Osaka so that they might respond when
they hear about His Son, Jesus.
(4) Pray that the Lord would give
Dan great wisdom for pasturing Osaka International Church.
(5) Praise the Lord for His unfailing mercies in
protecting Karen during the accident.
(6) Continue to pray for Ida, a new MUP
member who was scheduled to come work with us next summer,
who is now undergoing chemotherapy for her lung cancer.
(7) Praise the Lord for Aukje
vandenBerg, a MUP Japan missionary who is considering relocating to Osaka to
join our church planting team.
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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