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Konnichiwa minna-san! (Hello everyone!) Welcome to the official webpage for the summer missions team to Japan from Independent Bible Church. Here you will find our posts throughout the trip (which are below this introduction), and various updates on our ministry once it begins.
If all goes well, we will be serving God in Japan from June 21 to August 7, 2004, working with Asian Access/LIFE Ministries at a pre-established church. Japan is a fascinating nation filled with wonderful, intelligent people, but sadly, Christianity makes up only 1/2 of 1% of the religious atmosphere. It is a nation lost in worldly religion and one that desperately needs Christ.
We are currently in the process of raising the required funds necessary to get us to Japan. If you would like to support us, either through prayer (which is also much needed) or through a financial contribution, please email us at japan2004@aveiceae.com. Thank you kindly and God bless!
Friday, April 23, 2004
Pictures and videos!!
posted by: court
Pictures from the concert and the garage sale are now on the photos page (linked above), as well as a few short video clips from the concert. Enjoy! :)
posted at: 11:50:53 AM
Monday, April 19, 2004
Busy and fruitful weekend!
posted by: court
The most intense weekend yet for the team is finally over, capped off with the AWESOME and rockin' concert last night that ended up being our biggest fundraiser to date. Man was it cool! I have a lot of pictures and a few digicam videos from last night that I will post as soon as I get them off the camera. I think the highlight of the whole evening for me was hearing the immensely talented Joey Roberts & his band rocking it up for 4 songs. But even besides Joey & co. the night was filled with a huge variety of talented musicians and a smorgasboard of musical styles. Several people told me it was the best benefit concert they had ever attended. So, HUGE thanks goes out to all those who performed and generously gave their time, and to all those who helped - especially our sound guy, Roger!!
The day before we had our yard sale - also a success but a heck of a lot more work. We were up at 6:00am setting up tables and getting stuff set out and we stayed until 4, then carting off all the unbought merchandise to Goodwill. A few select pictures from the sale will be posted soon as well.
Our first payment of $4000 is due tomorrow and we have already met that goal.... in fact, we've already made $1000 toward our 2nd payment! (We have 3 total payments.) Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
posted at: 10:17:37 AM
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Tree-capping
posted by: court
Ohhhhh man was this a long, hot, strenuous day of capping young trees... in rough terrain, mind you. But on the plus side, we earned $400 for Japan and can rest in the knowledge we will never have to staple pieces of paper to approximately 5,460,401 wee baby trees ever again.
Also, last Thursday we visited two of the Bible studies from our church and gave them the run-down on our trip. We went in kimono and felt very blessed to have them pray for us and to see that they are so interested and willing to support us.
Next up: Garage sale April 17.
Happy Easter!
posted at: 7:09:02 PM
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Woohoo!
posted by: court
Fundraising is proceeding! Counting the tree-capping we're doing this weekend for $400, we're only $945 short of our first $4,000 payment (due the 20th) with 2 more fundraisers to go before then (the garage sale and the concert)!
At that point it will be $4,000 down, $8,600 to go! We're on our way.....
posted at: 2:38:34 PM
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Coffee Houses
posted by: court
We've started planning for our Coffee Houses, 90-minute get-togethers we'll have in Japan to introduce people to the church in a non-scary situation (haha). We'll plan for 4, centered around themes of American Night (on the 4th of July), Birthdays (both Maureen and Laurel will have their b-days in Japan), Mexican Night (Mexican food is very rare over there), and Mariners Night (they love Ichiro!). So right now we're trying to think of games, music, etc, centered around these themes. Got any ideas?
posted at: 12:18:37 PM
Monday, April 05, 2004
Latest activities
posted by: court
We were busy fundraising this last weekend... Saturday Maureen, Jeri, and I painted one of the outside walls of my parents' house for a cool $100, and yesterday we went back out to the McDonalds parking lot and had another car wash. As we had not really had a chance to advertise this one, it wasn't quite as successful, but we made almost $200 there, so it was a fruitful weekend overall.
While we were there I grabbed an application for a McDonalds McTakeover (where your group works there for a Tuesday night and keeps 40% of the profits) and was informed by my aunt that she and my cousin had raised over $1000 selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts... so we may be looking into that soon as well!
Planned upcoming events:
-Tree-capping April 10
-Garage sale April 17
-Concert April 18
-Car washes as often as possible
TBA:
-Movie Night at the church (sometime in May, maybe the 15th)
-Flocking
-Lunches after church
-T-shirt sales
posted at: 10:23:07 AM
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