God sent approximately 40 local people, including their 14 children, to our Bridge International Café on November 15th! Six first-time attendees were there. The theme was Thanksgiving. In Japan, we don’t have Thanksgiving Day. Therefore, we decided to make the event an opportunity for the participants to express gratitude in their daily lives. Keith from Jacksonville, FL, standing next to me, attended the event. -He was visiting for his work for a while.- For Elizabeth, part of our B.I. Café team, this was the last opportunity to serve our local community. She helped with the B.I. Café for these two years. She’ll return to the US soon. I could tell that participants enjoyed the time with us, and I believe that so did their children. We will keep building the friendship with our local community and contributing to their lives through the B.I. Café. After winning their trust, I believe that God will give us many opportunities to share the gospel with them.

What an opportunity it was! Eri and I were privileged to join a missions conference hosted by Westminster PCA in Jacksonville, Florida, from October 10th to 12th. We did not expect to fly back to Jacksonville at all when we were there in the fall last year. Roughly 100 to 150 people attended the conference during these three days. I was given opportunities to speak three times, including about our Bridge International plant in Kaneda, Kisarazu, Chiba. We were encouraged to meet people who prayed for us, our ministries, and Japan from Jacksonville! There were many highlights I want to share, but I would pick this if I were asked to choose one highlight: During the conference, a church elder came to me and said this: “Yuji, don’t you think God has given Japan about 500,000 believers there? Don’t you think we can first be grateful for these believers God had kept in Japan before you keep saying that you don’t have many believers there?

I appreciated his insightful comment. I should praise God who keeps 500,000 active believers in Japan! I pray that God motivates them all for the advancement of His kingdom.

Since September, God has miraculously kept adding local people to Yuji’s ECC. Now, we have 10 regular participants at Tuesday beginner’s club and 15 regular participants at Saturday beginner’s and intermediate’s clubs. God is faithful and good to us! On the 4th of October, my friend Gavin from Toronto visited us to join my English conversation club. Around 20 local people gathered together to spend time with us and Gavin to learn about his country, Canada, and his city, Toronto. May God bless my ECC people and guide them to Christ eventually!

We finally began our bilingual worship (English and Japanese) as we want to grow as an international Christian community! It took three years for us to start Sunday worship since we began our community building, outreach events in December 2022. I believe that God is working in our community through our activities at our local community center, Kaneda Mission House (our house), and so on, for His glory. We took this photo right after the worship in October. We are still so small, but we trust in the Lord of the harvest, who can grow our small congregation little by little here in Kaneda, Kisarazu, Chiba, by adding our local people to us!

Reuben and Leah, with their four-month-old baby, Theo, flew to Japan to visit us in Kaneda, Kisarazu, Chiba, on Wednesday, June 18. Eri and I could spend four days with them by having them involved in some of our ministries. This family also brought their Filipino friend, Gabbie, to us. Thus, we also had Gabbie experience our ministries here. One of our primary prayer requests is to recruit people for our church plant. I pray that they can come back to Kaneda to join our team for God’s glory!

We took the family and Gabbie to our three target places: Kaneda East, Kaneda West, and near Sodegaura Station. In Kaneda, there are the Costco warehouse, its headquarters office, Mitsui Outlet Park (the biggest outlet mall in Japan), and a brand new community center called Kaneda Community Center. We took them to these locations with prayers.

On the last day of their stay with us, we had Reuben, Leah, and Gabbie help with Yuji’s English Conversation Club at the community center. Approximately 15 people joined us and had a wonderful time with us.

The family arrived at Tokyo Narita International Airport in Chiba!

Reuben & Leah, baby Theo, and Gabbie were with us at Kaneda Community Center for Yuji’s ECC.

Leah spoke about Canada using the whiteboard.