, written in January 2004

GENERAL OVERVIEW OF 2003

Church Planting at Sunrise Chapel

In July Sunrise Chapel welcomed PastorTakashi Hayasaka, his wife Nobuko, and their two children. Until then we had led the church plant. Since then we have been “cooperating missionaries,” working alongside the Hayasakas. We have been blessed with a smooth transition in leadership.

The year saw numerous highlights at Sunrise Chapel. For our special Easter event we formed a gospel choir. The former seminary intern at Sunrise chapel was married in March and now pastors a church in Kanagawa prefecture. We had our first engagement ceremony in May. A team of six teachers came from Woodlands EFC in Wisconsin to teach at our third annual summer outreach English class week. We had over seventy adults and children attend the classes. Ann continued with twice monthly ladies English classes, including a spring, end of summer and Christmas party. From August she began teaching a fifteen minute English time in the Sunday school (Sunrise Joy Club) to attract children from the summer English program. In the fall Dale began a twice monthly English inductive Bible study class. In addition, Pastor Hayasaka began a home meeting and several outreach Bible studies in Japanese for interested English students. For Christmas events we had a special harp concert, a children’s party, a candlelight Christmas eve service and a caroling concert at a nursing home.

Our worship attendance numbers have probably averaged about 25 in the fall months, with about 35 seekers involved in various church meetings. In addition to the monthly facility rental of 220,000 yen, the church is also carrying the salary and expenses for the Hayasaka family. Sunrise Chapel is now in its fourth year of financial independence from Musashino EFC, our mother church. The Lord has been good.

Our Children

Bryan entered grade 8 in September and is now in his last year of middle school. He enjoyed being on the middle school basketball team and playing French horn in the band. In the summer he participated in CAJ’s basketball camp and attended a week at Joy Bible Camp in Okutama. This fall his greatest challenge has been “relearning” to play the horn and to whistle with his newly acquired braces.

Matthew entered grade 6. He is happy to have fifth grade and the required “Independent Study Project” behind him. Adjustment to middle school has been good, although he would usually prefer to stay at home than go to school. Like Bryan, he enjoyed participating in basketball camp and Joy Bible Camp in the summer. Both Bryan and Matthew were on the CAJ middle school cross country team in the fall.

Kristy began her second year at Trinity Western University in the fall, with a major in psychology and a minor emphasis in either religious studies (Bible) or missions (yet to be decided). Her Greek professor has given her the nickname of “Greek geek.” We were glad to have her home for the summer. Teaching English at a kumon and two online TWU courses kept her busy all summer. At the end of the summer we purchased a pair of video cameras for our computers and now we regularly video conference with Kristy while she is in her dorm at TWU. Her roommate calls Ann her “Tokyo mom.”

We and our children enjoyed a rain filled two weeks at Takayama in August.

Ann

In addition to the above mentioned English classes, Ann shared piano responsibilities with Mana Naito at church. She resumed twice monthly Japanese language classes with Kaoru Shimada and completed reading her first book in Japanese. Ann also participated in the annual JEMA ladies retreat and became a member of the leadership committee.

Dale

Until July 2003, Dale juggled church planting leadership at Sunrise Chapel with teaching at Japan Bible Seminary. Since then he has been preaching at Sunrise monthly, and sometimes at other churches. This lighter church planting load has allowed him to give more time to a few theological projects, including two US trips in the fall—one for the Theological Educators Conference of the EFCA-IM and one for the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual event. He has developed a syllabus for a course on Church Planting Theology and continues to write a regular column on the same subject in Japan Harvest. These can be seen at http://www.cptheo.net.

Transfer to the Evangelical Free Church of Canada Mission (EFCCM)

After much thinking, prayer, and discussion throughout the fall, we transferred to the EFCCM effective January 1, 2004. Dale’s Canadian citizenship required that we maintain Canadian tax payer status even while with the EFCA-IM. A transfer makes these matters easier to handle. The change entails a continuing close partnership with the EFCA-IM. So we look forward to partnering with the EFCMJ to the degree we are invited to do so. Our desire is to serve together with the EFCMJ and the EFCJ in the birth and growth of healthy churches here in Japan.