VVV  OSAKA DIRECT VVV  June 2003 

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Dear Friends,

    Greetings in the Name of Jesus, our precious Lord and Savior!  It has been a whirlwind busy five weeks since we last wrote, and to be honest, we are pretty tired.  But we are also full of joy as we see the Lord accomplishing His purposes here in Osaka.  On top of everything else, Dan was called on to conduct his first funeral and his first wedding ceremony - both in Japanese, of course.  Although the two events were very different, both were good opportunities to share the love of Jesus, and to put Romans 12:15, " Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn," into practice.   May the Lord bless you as you read this edition of Osaka Direct and guide you in prayer for the people here according to His divine will and purposes.

Outreach to Osaka Christian College Students

 

 

 

    In Japan it is always difficult to get people to come and listen to the Good News of Jesus, so if they won't come to us, then we have to go to them.  This month, street music by Antifany warmed the hearts of many people to stop, listen, and make friends with the team.  At events like these, and through distribution to mailboxes, over 30,000 tracts were passed out during the past month.  These tracts included a short gospel message and invitations to additional special events and, of course, to the church.  The band also brought 1,000 specially-produced CDs to give away and the CDs included four songs and a gospel witness with Japanese interpretation from Amy, the lead singer for Antifany.  We have already had many people come to special events and a few to the cell church meetings as a result of this outreach, and we expect to continue to see many more people who were ministered to by the street evangelism in the future.

Left:  Antifany plays at the Osaka Castle Park while other workers reach out to the crowd.
Right: The day we were there, a unicycle club was also putting on an impressive show 

 

    The Osaka Castle Park was one of the most fun street music events that we did, and it was particularly special in that many Japanese and foreigners from the Osaka International Church came out to join us since the event was right after the Sunday morning service.  For most of these people it was their first experience in doing direct gospel outreach, but they soon got into the swing of it and did a great job of passing out literature and sharing about Jesus with people who wanted to know why we were having a free concert in the park.

 

    Pastor So, a Korean missionary friend, has a tremendous outreach to the homeless of Osaka and we had the privilege of partnering with him to share through music and the Word at a recent meeting.  About 200 homeless people came to see a movie, hear the music of Antifany, and listen to the gospel message.  Each meeting ends with a free meal, which may be one of the reasons the meetings are so well-attended.  Pastor So and his team provide over a 1,000 meals a week at four different meetings of this type.  The homeless people seemed to be blessed by the music, the message and the chance to meet American friends.  It was also a great learning experience for the team, since some of them had never had an opportunity to minister to homeless people prior to this. 

 

 

    This summer we have International Coffee Time every Wednesday night at the Grapevine Cell Church, and this is the most popular of the regularly scheduled cell church events. There is live music, free coffee, cold drinks, and snacks, lots of opportunities to meet new friends, and of course games to play.  Quite a few Osaka Christian College students have been coming to the coffee house since they made friends with the short-term workers during their visit to the college (see above).  The Ungame was very popular since it stimulated interesting conversation and allowed the Japanese students to practice their English with native speakers in a fun setting.

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)