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GENERAL OVERVIEW OF 2001
In the year 2001 our spheres of responsibility included leading the church plant at Sunrise Chapel (Higashi Murayama EFC), overseeing guest apartment and maintenance of our Mission’s Tokyo house (where we live), overseeing guest rental and maintenance of our Mission’s retreat house in Sendai (northern Japan), part time seminary teching (Dale), and various Mission leadership committees. Some encouraging things happened in our ministry in the past year. We were able to move Sunrise Chapel into a larger, more spacious rental facility conveniently located near a train station. We rent the third floor of a business building (two restaurants below us, and a martial arts gym and offices on the two floors above us) for about US$1700 per month. We now have a spacious worship area with kitchen and three rooms on the side for Sunday school and the future Japanese pastor’s study. During the summer we hosted a week of special outreach English classes and welcomed six short termers from the US to do the teaching. We had good response with almost sixty students in attendance. We continue to see results and relationships built through that program. This is primarily due to the fact that most of the students had some kind of link with Ann’s twice a month English conversation classes. The lay leadership in our church grew increasingly unified during 2001. Our lay leaders work very hard and serve as the backbone of our church. Throughout 2001 Dale carried the preaching and teaching responsibilities at Sunrise Chapel. In August, Sunrise Chapel sent three members to Mongolia for one week of outreach Japanese language teaching. Dale led the small team. This was Sunrise Chapel’s and our Mission's first attempt to use the Japanese language as a missional tool in Mongolia, so our major purpose was to evaluate the feasibility of such a program for the future. We built our Japanese classes on the model of outreach English classes which our Mission has successfully used around the world. Although English is the most common second language to be studied in Mongolia, Japanese is the second most common. Our long range goal is to open a door for Japanese believers to minister as cross-cultural short term missionaries in Mongolia. Dale taught a one semester upper level class, Contemporary Theology, at Japan Bible Seminary from April through October. It was his first attempt at teaching theology in Japanese. He hopes the students enjoyed the class as much as he did. He is looking forward to teaching the same class again in 2002. In January 2001 the East Asia region of our Mission decided to move toward launching a Church Planting Theological Studies Institute (CPTSI). Dale is the director. The vision of CPTSI is to train cross cultural church planters for East Asia by offering accredited seminary level course work which emphasizes the integration of church planting with the classic theological disciplines (Old Testament, New Testament, Historical Theology, and Systematic Theology). CPTSI is a partnership between the Evangelical Free Church Mission, several seminaries in East Asia, and at least one seminary in North America. Dale exerted quite a bit of effort in working out many of these details in 2001. The results will hopefully become more visible in 2002.
FAMILY Our three children, Kristy, Bryan and Matthew, continue to like attending Christian Academy in Japan. All three are doing well academically and are enjoying many friends. Kristy’s involvement in HiBa (a youth group at school), early morning accountability groups twice a week, and summer Bible camp work have encouraged spiritual growth in her life. Sources of spiritual nourishment for our children include Bible classes at school, Sunday school at church and family Bible reading (OT historical books). Kristy also faithfully reads a copy of her father’s sermon in English while he preaches in Japanese. “Friday Family Fun Night,” observed in many ways, has become a custom almost set in cement. We enjoy biking together, watching videos, reading Tolkien, doing puzzles, drinking root beer floats, and most of all vacationing at the Mission retreat house in Sendai. With all three children in school we (Dale and Ann) have enjoyed regular dates out for breakfast or coffee or shopping. Even though we are together a lot, prayer time as a couple is still hard to find and recently we have included a prayer time during our noon lunch together. The challenge of balancing ministry and family is continually before us, but we are enjoying working together as a team in our church ministry, involving our children whenever possible.
EVENTS OF 2001 January 7-12 Attended the first All East Asia EFCM conference at the Caliraya Conference Center near Manila in the Philippines
ACCOMPLISHED OBJECTIVES FROM 2001 * Help Sunrise Chapel find a new facility to rent. * Have Sunrise Chapel host a short term team of outreach English class teachers from North America for two weeks in July 2001. * Have Sunrise Chapel send a small team of outreach Japanese class teachers 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 term missionaries. * Dale began to lay the foundations for a seminary accredited Church Planting Theological Studies Institute in East Asia.
UNACCOMPLISHED OBJECTIVES FROM 2001 * Find a Japanese seminary intern to help in our church plant. (We are still looking.) * Produce six newsletters in 2001 (We sent out five hard copy letters and one e-mail newsletter in 2001. Our 2001 evaluation was sent out in January 2002.) * Dale will try to publish several theological articles. (Six articles are still in the making, one of which was presented at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting (US) in November.)
GENERAL OBJECTIVES FOR 2002 * Host a second annual English outreach program at Sunrise Chapel with teachers from North America * By April decide upon the new lay leaders and leadership structure for Sunrise Chapel * By March have the leaking roof replaced at the Tokyo Mission house we live in * By July prepare our Mission’s retreat house in northern Japan for summer guests * Spend three months (Sep - Nov) on home assignment in North America visiting and reporting to churches * Settle daughter Kristy into a Christian liberal arts college in North America * Produce six newsletters
ANN’S PERSONAL OBJECTIVES FOR 2002 * Continue with weekly Japanese lessons * Continue with twice a month English conversation classes at church * Perform a puppet play with Sunrise Chapel puppet team * Catch up and keep up with correspondence
DALE’S PERSONAL OBJECTIVES FOR 2002 * Continue the preaching and teaching responsibilities at Sunrise Chapel * Arrange for pulpit supply at Sunrise Chapel during our three month home assignment * Teach one theology class at Japan Bible Seminary * Finalize arrangements for our field’s co-publishing in Japanese of Millard Erickson’s text on Christian Theology for use in seminaries in Japan * Finalize most of the decisions for birthing our East Asia region’s Church Planting Theological Studies Institute * As requested, continue producing one page articles on theology and church planting for the EFC of Canada Mission Director’s regular newsletter * During the first part of 2002, provide leadership to our field’s strategy commission * Present a theological paper at the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting in Toronto in November * Try to raise a full maximum financial support package * Try to publish several theological articles
PRAYER REQUESTS FOR 2002 * Three month home assignment needs for September through November: a place to live and a car * Outreach English class team of six short termers from North America for the summer program * Growth for Sunrise Chapel and preparation for calling a pastor by April 2003 * Direction from the Lord as to further outreach Japanese class ministry in Mongolia * A good transition for Kristy into college life in North America * Full support package * All our objectives listed above
FINANCIAL NEEDS FOR 2002 We are lacking about US$7000 per year for a maximum support package. |
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