Close to launch

Leaving for Brazil on Wednesday, July 21st with the JEMS Evangelistic Basketball team!  Woo hoo!  Please pray for our safe travel!  And for language rebirth.  Why?

I received an email from Brazil this past Sunday.  It came from the Liberdade Holiness Church where I will be speaking on July 25th:

"PJ,
Quick question: during the Sunday service, will you speak in Portuguese during the sermon?  We need to know so we can arrange an interpreter. For us will be easier if you speak in Portuguese, since we have to have an interpreter translate to Japanese."

Oh my!  Preaching in Portuguese on my first Sunday in Brazil, just a few days after arriving.  You can pray with me that God will turn that part of my brain back on!  Really!  An almost ten-year layoff from ministry in Brazil creates some uncertainty and anxiety in my heart.  At the same time, I know that God is faithful.  Please pray for the ministries that I will be involved in this summer.  

In addition to accompanying the JEMS basketball team after their arrival in São Paulo, I hope to visit Greg Oda and the Okada family who will be ministering at the Holiness Youth Camp at Shalom Camp about an hour from the city of São Paulo.  

The basketball team and I will go our separate ways during the second week of ministry.  The team will go to Londrina, a city of almost five-thousand Nikkei families eight hours south of São Paulo.  

I will be meeting with Pastor Koki and Mari Nowada, a missionary couple serving at the Asunción Free Methodist Church in Paraguay.  JEMS hopes to continue this partnership in Asunción.  Paraguay is known as "The heart of South America" due to its central geographical location on the continent.

 


The third week of ministry should find me back in Brazil and on my way to Marilia to visit JEMS six-month worker, Justine Morey. (click here for Justine's prayer blog)

After spending time with Justine as well as the pastor and leadership of the Marilia Free Methodist Church, I will move on to the city of Pompeia, to meet up again with the basketball team.  

Pompeia is about one-half hour from Marilia and six hours from São Paulo.  Our host church there is one of the largest churches in the Brazilian Holiness denomination with an average Sunday worship attendance of 700 (mostly non-Nikkei). 

Our ministries will wind up with debriefing in São Paulo on our last day (August 9) and our departure from Brazil and return to LAX on August 10th.


Please pray for the many miles and varieties of ministries this trip will call for.  Flexibility and a strong sense of dependence on God will be an important ingredient to pack in our luggage and hearts as we will define ministry tasks sometimes in the spur of the moment.  

Remember Marc and Tami Takamine, Matthew Asami, Leighton and Lilly Okada who are serving in South America for the very first time.  The other team members and teams have all had prior experience in Brazil either through JEMS or through Holiness Youth Choir trips.  


Experience notwithstanding, we appreciate every prayer that you can lift up for us even now.  Last minute preparations include message, testimony and lesson preparations, material and craft purchases, prayer letters (like this one), omiage selections, making sure our packing is under weight limitations.  It's a combination of the ministry and the mundane, but all of it is so important.


Thank you again so much for your prayer AND financial partnership.  Without your financial support of our JEMS teams and my own ministry, this would not possible.


God bless you!

July Calendar (Click on calendar image to enlarge)




August Calendar (click on calendar image to enlarge)