, written in January 2001

The year 2000 was great for our church planting ministry at Sunrise Chapel. Thank you for praying for our ministry in 2000! We believe the church is poised for some future growth. Ann started bi-weekly outreach English conversation classes. She was also able to start a puppet group at church, with the first performance at Christmas 2000. We began a Young Adults group. Several regular home Bible studies began in 2000. Our Sunday worship attendance averages about 20 adults, plus children. That’s about double what it was in Oct/99. Our facility has become too small.

But good things in ministry usually don’t occur without some bumps along the way. Accordingly, in 2000 we as a church had to struggle with what feels like a premature and rapid withdrawal of financial support from our mother church in Tokyo. We also had to deal with the disappointment of one key couple’s choice to distance themselves from our church. Nevertheless, we sense that God was good to Sunrise Chapel in 2000, and we are excited about what God could do in and through us in 2001.

Dale’s ministry options in theological education became clearer in 2000. He successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation in Chicago in the spring of 2000, and in May 2000 was asked to join the faculty of Japan Bible Seminary as a part time lecturer in theology. So from March through October 2001 he will be teaching Contemporary Theology (in Japanese).

Significant events of 2000:

* Jan/00: church retreat and vision casting meetings.
* Mar-May/00: Dale’s Ph.D. dissertation defense and graduation.
* Aug/00: Kristy’s baptism, summer family vacation by the sea for ten days.
* Sep/00: Launching of Ann’s outreach English classes for housewives at Sunrise Chapel.
* Nov/00 - present: new church facility search for Sunrise Chapel.
* Dec/00: Christmas evangelistic outreaches at Sunrise Chapel.

In addition to the items in the first paragraph above, in 2000 we were able to accomplish these goals we had set the previous year:

* Develop our own web site to help us stay in touch with friends, family, and supporters.
* Produce six newsletters in 2000. (They are all on our website, if you missed them.)
* Provide Ann with the opportunity to study Japanese weekly with a tutor.
* Dale launched a network for our Mission’s theological educators in East Asia. The network is called TEA (Theological Educators in Asia).
* Under Ann’s leadership we started bi-weekly outreach English classes at Sunrise Chapel for housewives.

Some objectives for the coming year (2001):

* Help Sunrise Chapel find a larger and more conveniently located facility to rent.
* Find a Japanese seminary intern to help in our church plant for this next year (Apr/01 – Mar/02). (Our current intern will be moving to another church in April 2001.)
* Produce six newsletters in 2001.
* Dale will try to publish several theological articles.
* Host a short term team of outreach English class teachers from North America for two weeks in July 2001.
* Dale plans to take a team of three people from Sunrise Chapel to Mongolia for one week in August to try outreach Japanese conversation classes, with a view to encouraging the EFC of Japan to send out short termers to other countries in Asia.
* Dale is laying the foundations for a seminary accredited Church Planting Theological Studies Institute in Tokyo and Singapore. It looks quite likely that the Institute will be linked with Associated Canadian Theological Schools (ACTS) at TWU.

Some prayer requests for 2001:

* New believers to be added to God’s family from among our outreach English classes at Sunrise Chapel.
* Wisdom for Ann as she decides how to prepare the Bible portion of her bi-weekly outreach English classes.
* Strength for Dale’s weekly teaching and preaching responsibilities at Sunrise Chapel.
* Strength and clarity of thought for Dale’s part time seminary teaching in Japanese from March to November.
* We need to reach a full financial support package. We seem to be stuck at 90%!