The Great Escape

[simon at simon-cozens.org]

The Great Escape

   Summers in Japan get extremely hot, and where we are in Shiga
   prefecture, the nights bring no relief - temperatures don't often drop
   below 30 night or day. So when a friend invited me to his wedding in
   the UK, it seemed like a great time to make a great escape...

Three weeks in the UK

   It wasn't just for Al's wedding - and it honestly wasn't just to avoid
   the heat - but it was a great opportunity to catch up with people back
   in the UK. I'd been away for sixteen months up until last July, the
   longest I have ever lived outside the country.

   While back, I had the privilege of preaching at St. Aldate's Oxford
   and the Japanese Christian Fellowship in London, and of meeting up
   with a large number of friends, supporters and church workers. I had a
   good `debrief' at WEC headquarters, prayer meetings in London and
   Swansea, and some time both with my missions pastor and Henrietta's
   missions pastor. I got a few days with my mother in Wales and, of
   course, Al's wedding was fantastic.

   But it was quite a tiring time, sleeping in a different bed most
   nights, and by the end I was quite happy to get back.

A week at camp

   I arrived back home in Nagahama on Thursday night, and headed off on
   Friday afternoon to a weekend "International Friendship" camp. Our
   mission has a great campsite right by the lakeside, and we hold a
   number of camps over the summer. I never sleep well at the campsite,
   so I figured that being jetlagged could only help...

   The "Friendship" camp is for single people and families without
   children, and we had five young people come along; next was the
   "Family" camp with a few more, over fifty in all, and my week of camps
   ended with the combined Nagahama youth and South American camp.

Maibara Update

   Somewhere in that week of camps we managed to fit in our second
   Maibara Revive meeting. This is our pioneer outreach movement from
   Nagahama to the next city. This time I was able to more easily share
   the vision of how I wanted things to proceed. (Interested readers
   should see http://blog.simon-cozens.org/post/view/1371 for how I
   see the Maibara work developing.) We had fifteen people come along,
   including two Maibara residents not attached to Nagahama church.

   The next stage after the meetings is evangelism, and God has already
   answered some of our prayers on that. We have three short-term
   missionaries coming to Japan from next month, at least one of whom
   will be based with the Maibara outreach, while the others will be
   available to us. We also have been praying for new Christian English
   teachers in Nagahama - to replace the two who left, God has sent us
   six! And they are already involved in outreach to their peers - the
   church will be putting on a "Japanese Culture Experience Day" on the
   7th of September aimed at the new crop of English teachers, and our
   new English service members have been inviting their friends. We hope
   that through demonstrating Japanese culture, our church can reach out
   to the non-Christian foreign population, and experience cross-cultural
   evangelism here at home in Japan!

Who?

   I am a full-time mission worker with WEC International in Japan.

   I believe that all Japanese people should be given the opportunity to
   hear and respond to the good news about Jesus Christ, and I hope to
   concentrate on working with the Japanese church to reach businessmen.

Contact


    Tonomachi 3-28 Nagahama-shi Shiga 526-0064 Japan

Prayer points

     * Thank God for the provision of several Christian teachers and new
       short term missionaries. Please pray that we can both use them and
       support them appropriately
     * Pray for those who came to our camps this summer, many of whom are
       not Christians, that they will develop their connections with the
       churches.
     * Please continue to pray for Maibara as we try to stabilise our
       meetings, begin to invite lay leaders to take over, and branch out
       into evangelism.
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