Back Again!

As most of you know, just a little under two weeks from now I'll be taking a team of six back to Japan. We'll be heading up the mountains to the town of Ome (at the very edges of the Tokyo city border). There, we'll spend four days at a refugee camp with the Fukushima First Baptist Church, a church uprooted and moved from city to city to city as a result of the recent tsunamis, quakes, and nuclear scares. (You can read their story on the following link by clicking the "English" tab in the center of the page: http://f1church.com/)

We'll be sharing the message of hope and love with the children of the church, as well as children from a local school, through the teaching of English. Each day, the children will learn eight new words through the creative teaching of a Bible story. They'll also get to enjoy musical worship, skits, scavenger hunts, and games that emphasize the words they're learning as well as Christ's love and the hope we have in Him. While in Japan, we will also be spending time with Grace-supported SEND missionaries, Steve and Janet Kunnecke, as well as the church plant that has become their mission field for the past 30 years, Kurume Christ Church (KCC).

As with any mission trip, we are called to be flexible so that we, as servants, may meet the needs of where we are going--not the needs of our own agenda. In preparation for this trip, my team has been praying for flexible, servant hearts as we seek to let the Spirit work as He needs. Almost as if to test this, a wrench was thrown into our plans as one of our outreach events, KCC's annual Summer Festival, was cancelled just this past week, leaving us with two full days at the end of our trip unaccounted for.

Prayerfully, we have been considering where to take the team from here. And as we know, wherever the Lord closes a door, He opens another. The opportunity has arisen for our team to travel to the disaster-stricken area to serve. They are in desperate need of clean-up crews, as well as crews to sort and re-package the supplies and donations that have been pouring in since April. We believe that this is an opportunity that God has led us to.

For this to happen, however, we need to raise an extra $200 per person ($1,200) to cover travel and accommodations for those two days. If you feel led to support our team in this way, you can mail checks or cash directly to Grace Community Church//5504 East 146th St//Noblesville IN 46062//c/o Jason Myers. The checks should be made out to "Grace Community Church," and the memo line should read "JT" only. Any checks with my name on them will not be accepted for tax purposes.

Although we will be leaving July 22 (returning August 1), we will be accepting donations for this disaster relief portion of the trip through July 25. You can read more about the rest of our trip at our team blog: http://abbigoestojapan.blogspot.com/. We will also be broadcasting our sessions with the children via ustream.com. Once we have our account set up, the link will be posted on our blog.

Thank you all for the prayers and support that you continually offer. God bless you this week as we dive into the middle of July! :)

Laura

(Below I've included photos taken by a member of our church currently on a disaster relief trip in Sendai)