VVV
OSAKA DIRECT VVV May
2003
Dear Friends,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ! We are doing fine here in Osaka and keeping busy, as always. Summer season has arrived and we are already in full swing with summer outreach events, and we also already have one summer worker (Rachel Starr) staying with us. We hope that you enjoy reading this edition of Osaka Direct, and we also pray that the Lord is blessing you in your service to His kingdom as well. May the Lord bless you!
May News
Rachel Starr, Short-term Worker
Top left: Rachel
enjoys a fried leaf, Top right: Packing gift envelopes for people coming
to the concert
Bottom
left: Classical music on the flute, Bottom right: Making new friends after
the concert.
Rachel
Starr, a student from Northwestern College in Iowa, joined us as a MUP
short-term missionary on May 23rd. She will be working with us until
the end of July, and she has already been a big help and a pleasure to
work with. In addition to learning about Japanese culture and
language, she has helped out in many ways, cheerfully doing everything from
passing out tracts on the street to stuffing gift envelopes for people
coming to the concerts. The Lord has blessed her with musical
gifts also, and she even gave a classical concert with flute and piano at
one of the Saturday evening services at OIC, which was very well received
and allowed us to make several new contacts for follow-up.
Grapevine
Cell Church Update
Left:
Clowning around with friends after the Sunday evening prayer meeting at the
cell church.
Right:
Karen leads music on guitar for the small group meetings.
The
cell church plant is in full swing, and we are now advertising four
meetings per week: Wednesday night international coffee time, Sunday night
prayer meeting, and Thursday evening and Saturday morning cell meetings. So far
attendance has been limited to friends from other churches who have come to
encourage us, but from the recent concerts we now have a number of new
contacts to follow up with and we are praying that the Lord would lead some of
these people to join the church meetings soon. We have also begun
distribution of 45,000 concert announcements, tracts, and church flyers
that we had specially printed for the cell church kickoff.
Short-term teams coming in mid-June and mid-July will help with
distributing the flyers, and we are also getting help from the international
church. Partnership between the international church and the cell
church ahs been strengthened and the flyers provide contact information
for both churches.
Gospel
Concert At Abeno People's Hall
Left:
The MTJ Gospel Choir performing at Abeno. Right: Dan gave a short
evangelistic message in Japanese while the choir was on break.
On
Friday, May 30th, we hosted the first of a series of summer concerts that are
planned to provide lots of evangelistic contacts for the cell church and the
international church to follow up.
This performance was by an eighteen member gospel choir from Florida led by
Warren Griffith of Homestay International (an organization that arranges
homestays with Christian families for Japanese studying English in the USA).
The choir will be holding a number of concerts over a two week period and
we hosted one concert for them. Attendance was considerably
short of what we had prayed for, but most of the people who came filled
out questionnaires and gave their names and addresses for further
follow-up. Our attention will especially be focused on the seventeen
people who provided complete contact information and who indicated that
they did not currently have any church connection. For some of them,
this was the first gospel concert they had ever been to. As shown
in the photos below, many new friends were made and we all had a great time
not only during the concert, but also during the visiting time afterward.
Making
Friends at the Gospel Concert
Left:
Some members of the choir pose with new friends they met at the concert.
Right:
Volunteer ushers from the international church ham it up with some high
schools students who came to the concert.
In
addition to the special events and the cell church meetings, Dan is still
doing two services a week at the international church and keeping counseling
hours there, and Karen continues
to work hard both as a musician and producing bilingual DVDs of the Sunday
morning messages. The summer workers (both Rachel and those who have not
yet arrived) have given very positive reviews of the training DVDs that we
produced and sent them, and we see almost unlimited opportunities to
minister in many different ways through producing DVDs in the future. We
continually give thanks to the Lord for the work He is doing here in Osaka.
Prayer Calendar
Regular
Weekly Meetings
| Sunday: |
10:15 am Osaka International Church (OIC) regular service (Dan teaching
through Matthew). 6:00 pm Grapevine Cell Church prayer meeting (Dan leading, Karen and Rachel doing the music) |
| Monday: | Day off |
| Tuesday: | 8:00 am Passing out flyers and tracts with OIC people. 10:00-5:00 Dan has counseling hours at OIC |
| Wednesday: | 6:00 pm International Coffee Time at the Grapevine Cell Church (Rachel as hostess). |
| Thursday: | 7:00 pm Grapevine Cell Church cell group meeting (Dan teaching, Karen doing music). |
| Friday: | Dan does message preparation. Karen makes DVDs. |
| Saturday: |
10:00 am Grapevine Cell Church cell group meeting (Dan teaching). 6:30 pm OIC Saturday evening service (Dan does bilingual message, Karen does music) |
Special Meetings and Events in June and July
Ongoing: Friendship evangelism,
literature distribution and street music.
June 15th, Sunday:
Guest appearance by Rachel playing flute and piano at the Takamatsu and
Ayauta churches for evangelistic outreach meetings.
June 17th, Tuesday:
Eight member short-term missions teach from Father's House church(Tulsa)
arrives for a one month stay.
June 18th, Wednesday:
Father's House team doing joint outreach (tracting and music) with High-School
Born-Againers (HI-BA) club.
June 19th, Thursday:
Rachel and Father's House team working with the Light of Christ church for
tracting and special testimony meeting
June 20th, Friday:
Father's House team doing joint outreach with HI-BA club
June 22, Sunday:
Rachel doing a classical concert and testimony at the Light of Christ church.
June 24th, Tuesday:
Special outreach and barbecue at the Osaka Christian College
June 27th, Friday:
Special evangelistic concert at Abeno by the band Antifany (part of the
Father's House church team).
June 28th, Saturday:
Special evangelistic concert at OIC by the band Antifany (part of the Father's
House church team).
July 5th, Saturday:
Special International Night outreach at the "House of Light" in
Hirakata City.
July 7th, Monday:
The Father's House team goes to Miyoshi for one week to do outreach with the
church there.
July 12th, Thursday, 1:00
pm: Dan does the wedding service for an OIC member.
July 17th, Tuesday: The
Father's House team travels home.
July 18th,
Wednesday: A three member Overseas Summer Mission (OSM) team arrives to
hold special evangelistic English classes at the cell church for three
weeks.
July 21st, Monday:
The OSM special English classes start at the cell church.
July 21st, Monday:
A team of 24 adults and high school students arrives from Castleview Baptist
Church (Indianapolis) to do special outreach together.
July 25th, Friday:
The Castleview Baptist Church team holds a Family Fun outreach meeting at
Tennoji People's Center at 2:00 pm, followed by a concert at the same location
at 6:00 pm.
July 26th, Saturday, 6:30
pm: Castleview Baptist Church team holds a concert and testimony
outreach at OIC.
July 30th, Wednesday:
The Castleview Baptist Church team departs for the USA.
July 31st, Thursday:
Rachel Starr flies home to Minnesota
May the Lord bless you! 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. God bless you!
In Jesus' love,
Dan and Karen Ellrick
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