It is one year since we moved to Tokyo, and this month we just celebrated Jeremy’s 23rd “Japanniversary” and Manon and Jude’s birthdays! We are thankful to the Lord for his faithfulness through both the small and big changes in our life. Looking back, the Lord really has been consistent in what He has said to us, not only in the last few years but since the beginning of our marriage, and we feel that this is a season in our life where things are taking a more definite shape and expression. For Tokyo, as we have shared with you before, the specific instruction the Lord spoke to us was “to get into central Tokyo and pray.” Although it has been a challenge moving into a much smaller (and also colder and noisier!) place, we have been able to pray both in our apartment and central Shibuya without needing to travel much at all. The Lord also said that it was to be an apostolic work, and as we asked Him what that meant, we were led to connect with many leaders in the area to first find out what the Lord had been doing here, and to hear what they were hearing and receiving from the Lord. Going back to being a ministry that would be solely funded by support has been a learning experience as we sought for ways to share and articulate what is on our hearts to people from different backgrounds. So our first year in Tokyo has been taking steps forward as the Lord leads, realigning and readjusting direction as needed, finding vocabulary to match what the Lord lays on our hearts, and endeavoring to not say or promise anything that the Lord has not spoken to us to do. I feel it is truly a journey of co-creating with God, and I am convinced more than ever that the Lord has something authentic in mind that has not been expressed before. I am learning that when we say God is doing a new thing, we need to be ok with uncertainty and sometimes only knowing the next few steps. This keeps us humble and dependent on Him for sure! But if we could neatly articulate what the end product is supposed to look like, then it would not be God’s “new thing.” So thank you so much for all of you who have patiently walked this journey with us and supported us in prayer and financial gifts, and we sincerely ask that you would continue to dream with us!
-Kumi