We picked them up at the airport and had an uneventful 4 hour drive back to Shizuoka.
Now we’re just resting up for tomorrow’s Hawaii Luau and Seminar by yours truly.
Please keep us in prayer as we get set for all the adventures ahead of us.
One other prayer request is that many of the leaders in the church have lost their jobs and some have moved out of Japan. Please pray that God would miraculously provide jobs, business opportunities and supernatural provision for them.
Let me share a quick praise. We prayed for a man with an injured finger. He could not move his finger at all. After we prayed for him a little movement came back into the finger. Then we prayed again and more movement came back. We’re trusting God that his finger will be completely restored. And I just learned that Sheri has the same issue with her finger.
If God did it once this week, He’ll do it again. So, pray for God to heal Sheri’s finger and we’ll tell you how God miraculously healed it when we return.
Blessings!
Pastor Arlen
PS- it might help to learn a little bit of Japanese, and I suggest this excellent website to assist you.
Yes, God is alive and well in Japan. Yesterday (Wednesday morning) I was asked to minister at Yokohama Grace Bible Church.
I felt the Lord really wanted me to honor the pastors and the church because the presence of God is so strong at the church. When I was there the day before I could just feel His presence.
So I honored the church and it’s leadership. Then I explained Ezekiel’s vision in Ezekiel 47. It’s the vision where a trickle of water gets deeper and deeper as Ezekiel goes farther away from the church. It’s an end times vision of the church taking the presence of God to the communities we live in.
I spoke about honor and receiving a prophet’s reward. The message was well received. Then I closed with a time of ministry.
There were about 30 people in the service and surprizingly when I asked people who needed prayer or had pain in their bodies to stand, about 20 of them stood up. I knew the Lord healed several of them so I had them check to see if they were healed. About 4 sat down because they were healed. That’s good because I knew we needed more people to pray for those who still needed prayer.
I had the people who sat down and those seated pray for those who remained standing. Another 6 more were healed after praying once or twice.
By the time I left, one woman was still being touched by the Holy Spirit and only 2 still needed more ministry.
Praise God!!!
Thanks for your prayers. I’ll continue to post the good reports of what God is doing here in Japan.
Blessings!
Pastor Arlen
PS- it might help to learn a little bit of Japanese, and I suggest this excellent website to assist you.
Yes, God showed up again. I ministered at New Life Chapel in Okinawa. I have never felt the presence of the Holy Spirit so strong in Japan before. It was a wonderful time of ministry.
I had the privilege of giving a message about honor and ordinary ministers. Then we just asked the Holy Spirit to show up.
I prayed for a liver condition and the man said something lifted when we prayed. I saw it lift too.
Prayed for a family surrounded by suicides.
Prayed for stress and tension from work.
Prayed for a better job for one man.
Prayed for a boxing match. (hey, we can pray for anything)
Prayed for boldness.
Prayed for cancer in a friend and unforgiveness.
We just had a great time of praying for everything.
Here’s a picture of the beautiful church.
The center building is a mausoleum. The church felt the need to tell the community that they honor their ancestors even if they don’t worship them as Buddhists. They even have an annual service to honor their family members.
After the service, the pastor blessed me by taking me to Okinawan Soba. Here’s my food and a picture of Uchimura Sensei’s lunch.
Blessings!
Pastor Arlen
PS- it might help to learn a little bit of Japanese, and I suggest this excellent website to assist you.
Here’s a couple of pictures from my time in Okinawa. God is really showing up here in a powerful way! Saturday was a commissioning service to formally commission every person as a “marketplace minister”. It’s so biblical, one wonders why we don’t do this all the time.
We had a time of prayer to commission each person as a “Marketplace Minister”
Had the thought to look for orbs… see top right of the photo.
Blessings!
Pastor Arlen
PS- it might help to learn a little bit of Japanese, and I suggest this excellent website to assist you.
Sorry, I haven’t been posting. We’ve been getting home late and I’m just tired. Thanks for all the prayers though. We’ve been seeing some great open doors.
Wed. was divide and conquer day. We split up into 3 groups doing various activities throughout the day.
I went with Brad & Sean to an English Chat Club at a Chemistry Company in Hamamatsucho. The afternoon class was designed to help the workers to learn some practical english they could use at the company. We were role-playing calling the company and the workers had to take a message from us. It was fun.
We returned later that night for a free chat club where we just talked English (slowly) and helped them with their English. That was fun. And talk about technology. They had a video conference system akin to the Cisco System seen on the TV show 24. Awesome stuff. The chat via video was able to bring in 7 people from Tsukuba, 2 from another office, and 1 more from another location. It was awesome stuff.
Hopefully a few of them will come to our Hawaii Party on Sunday 10:30-4pm. おいのりしてください。please keep us in prayer.
Wed. afternoon we had free time so Brad, Sean, & I went up Tokyo Tower and got some great pictures.
Photoshop helped me put 40 pictures together to get this panorama…
From Thursday I took off for Okinawa. I’m attending a Transformation Okinawa Conference put on by local pastors from Hawaii and connecting with people for future mission opportunities in Okinawa.
My first experience in Okinawa, beautiful flowers lined our arrival.
The Beautiful countryside of Okinawa. Much more laid back than Tokyo. Reminds me of Shizuoka except even more rural.
The Conference Pastors & other leaders
賛美します。 Worshipping with over 500 people at Naha Baptist Church
Quick stop at Heiwadoori for dinner with Roy Toma
Stay tuned for more…
Pastor Arlen
PS- it might help to learn a little bit of Japanese, and I suggest this excellent website to assist you.
Pastor Glen, our partner in Japan asked us to visit coffee shops to make new friends for the Grace Tokyo Church. Accordingly, I went to a coffee shop near the university, ordered my drink and sat down at an open table. I started praying for the people around me that God would open their hearts and that they would have opportunities to come to know Him. I tried to start a conversation with the individual at the next table, but when that door closed, I continued praying for those around me. Later, I met the rest of the team on the university campus, and we all walked to a classroom to lead discussion groups in an English class. When I met my discussion group, I recognized one of the students as a young lady from the coffee shop whom I had prayed for earlier! Our group had a really great discussion time, and the two young ladies from our discussion group joined another student, the team members, Pastor Glen and a church member for dinner after class. We had a wonderful time getting to know one another, and I know that God will continue His good work in their lives. Praise God for providing an opportunity for many students to meet Christians! Please pray that the students would continue to meet with the Christians from Grace Tokyo, who will be able to demonstrate Christ’s love and that they would come to the Hawaii Party at Grace Tokyo this Sunday. Please also pray that God will continue to direct our steps and architect divine appointments.
Blessings!
Pastor Arlen
PS- it might help to learn a little bit of Japanese, and I suggest this excellent website to assist you.
Okay, now that we got some food pictures out of the way, are we actually doing ministry? Yes!
Justin called a friend today and we met up with him at the Okonomiyake place.
We’ll see him again tomorrow at church or the barbeque afterwards.
Here’s a hint for all of us to consider… if a person isn’t ready to come to church or pray or whatever, it doesn’t help to force them or make them feel guilty. When they are ready, they will come. And it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to draw them, not ours. Relax.
Blessings!
Pastor Arlen
PS- it might help to learn a little bit of Japanese, and I suggest this excellent website to assist you.
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