Pastor John at COPANI 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina

What a great experience to be among almost five-hundred Nikkei leaders and young people at COPANI (Convención Panamericana Nikkei) in Buenos Aires.  It was an opportunity to network with Nikkei from 14 mostly Latin American countries.  I was quite relieved to discover that a number of people were able to speak with me in English, as Spanish was the primary language of the convention.

Upon my return in September, I was invited by Discover Nikkei, a community project of the Japanese American National Museum, to write a brief account of my experience there.  The article I submitted can be found here: LINK.

For those who are more visual in their orientation, I also created a brief video of my time during the four-day conference.


In addition to the COPANI convention, I was invited to speak at the Sunday morning service of the Centro Cristiano Megumi in Buenos Aires.  In this case, the pastor, Luis Yonamine, is tri-lingual, speaking English, Japanese and Spanish.  I was able to preach in English with his able interpretation into Spanish.

Thank you so much for your prayers for the three-month long ministry in South America.  It was a productive and blessed time.