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church planting, church strengthening, leadership training, and missionary encouragement
Tokyo JAPAN

Christmas in Tokyo

With Bryan home for the holidays from LeTourneau University in Texas, Kristy on staff here in Tokyo at Christian Academy in Japan as guidance counselor, and Matthew in his last year of high school (also at CAJ), we all enjoyed our Christmas together as a family. May God’s Christmas peace, joy, and hope be yours as you walk around in the grace he has showered upon us in Jesus, the Christmas baby.

“The god who watches over my house”

On December 15 Ann had a Christmas party with her English students. After making a candle wreath and reading through the entire Christmas story from Matthew and Luke, they enjoyed a potluck lunch together. During lunch Ann overheard a conversation between several of the ladies about how they take care of the god in their yard who takes care of their house, what type of rice and sake (rice wine) to serve him, and when to clean the shrine.

Ann wanted to ask, “Do you really believe that this god takes care of your house? What would happen if you didn’t serve him rice and sake? Or what if he preferred a sandwich to rice and orange juice to sake?”

Many Japanese are very superstitious and carry amulets and good luck charms. Most of these ladies probably have stickers from certain temples on their cars showing that the car has been blessed and protected by some god. They fear what might happen if they do not take care of their gods and anything bad is attributed to displeasing one of the 8 million gods in Japan.

Please pray that as these ladies study the life of Christ they will actively compare him to their shrine and house gods, and that Ann will have the opportunity to challenge some of these superstitions.

Pastoral change at MCC

We complete our part time, interim pastorate at the English Department of Musashino Chapel Center (Tokyo Musashino EFC) at the end of January. With the arrival of the incoming pastoral couple, Howard and Marilynn Plucar (pictured at the right), we will be able to give more attention to developing plans for planting a multi-cultural church with MCC as the mother church. We look forward to leading an exciting and unique church planting project in Tokyo, teaming up with the English Department of MCC and the Plucars. Stay tuned for more in the next few months.

Interim outreach English teacher

Laura Shannon, our EFC of Canada Mission outreach English teacher in three EFC of Japan churches in the Tokyo area, continues her cancer treatments in the US. In our last letter, we mentioned the need for a temporary replacement. Well, God laid it on the heart of Eric Zipperlen, who was baptized this past August with two others from our church (MCC), to rise to the occasion and fill in as our teacher until March 2010. Eric has been teaching English in the Tokyo area for years, and loves to teach children. He is a perfect fit. Both we and the three churches are grateful.

Prayer Items

• We are thankful to have our entire family at home in Tokyo for Christmas and New Years!
• Pray that the ladies in Ann’s outreach English class will come to know, believe, and love the Savior who is Christ the Lord.
• Give thanks that the Plucars are coming to pastor MCC English Department in February.
• Pray that the Lord will bless our plans to lead a multi-cultural church planting project in Tokyo.
• Pray for Laura’s ongoing recovery from cancer.
• Praise God for Eric, our interim English teacher in three Tokyo area churches.

Dale and Ann Little