Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Thanks God for He is pleased by our hunger of His Word!
TMC helps the live-streaming of “Hong Kong Bible Conference” in Japan again as the last few years. Although there is no church in Japan can hold live-streaming “HKBC” in person because of the fifth wave this year, TMC still did a good publicity because Hong Kong office has announced the “open live-streaming” format early enough. We were in contact with 30 Chinese churches in Tokyo from 2018, then jump to 90 churches last year. This year, we even sent out 60 more materials to Chinese evangelical missionaries and pastors who are serving in different churches in Japan. Thanks God we’ve received replies from pastors in July, they said that they will encourage the Chinese they know to join online. After HKBC is finished, we also received certain positive feedback about it. It makes us know this pandemic really can’t stop those who seek the Word of God. We pray that God will use “HKBC” this year to raise up more Chinese to serve Him in ministry.
Although the pandemic made TMC Fellowship gather online, there is still someone who seek Christ through it. By the introduction of Macau pastor, We know Ping who is living in Tokyo needs mentally support. His parents has immigrated to Japan from Shanghai longer than 30 years ago, and they have changed their nationality from Chinese to Japanese then. It made he was born as Japanese citizens with his younger brother. But all his family had returned to Shanghai since he was four, so that he was grown up in China as a “foreigners” until he is adult. A few years ago, right after he has graduated from university, he came to Japanese for learning Japanese and start to work here. He said that he always feel shameful whenever he speaks broken Japanese in working place and he is confusing if he is a Japanese or Chinese. We found that he is the kind the one who need Chinese community to support him in Japan. After he finished his part-time job in Tokyo Olympics. Kevin invited him to joined TMC Chinese Fellowship. Thanks God although he is not a believer yet, he really enjoyed the Bible study and prayer time with each other.
Enoch is 8 months old now, and we have been prepared our furlough with him for a few months already. PTL that his birth registration has been done in Tokyo Portuguese Embassy successfully in July. And he has made an appointment at late October for applying citizen card, so hopefully he may got his passport by late Nov or early Dec. During the extreme hot summer in Tokyo annually, we’ve planned to take a domestic trip with Enoch in Hokkaido, let him knows how does it feel in a flying plane and staying at hotel. Since the pandemic is getting serious all around Japan, we finally brought him to Tokyo Disney Resort before and after “SOE”, let him experience how is the feeling on flying plane by the facilities in it. As the current quarantine requirement, we are still figuring it out the way how Enoch can pass Macau immigration as a foreigner, if this problem can be solved, we expect that we can meet you all in Macau & Hong Kong early next year. Pls keep us on your prayer for this “dream” will come true as we’ve expected.
The pandemic in Japan reach up to their peak during the Olympic Games, from a few hundreds cases daily in June, jump to several thousands cases per day. The most serious thing is certain patient have to be healed at home because the hospital is lack of space, and they finally died because of it. The main reason of this wave is Japan citizens start to be vaccinated from May, though they have enough vaccines, but only doctors are allowed to do injection. Although the doctors in Japan Self Defense Force also vaccinated the citizens, they still available to make 70 percent population to be vaccinated by November. It makes that 2 months in Tokyo Olympics, thousands people from the world traveling all around Japan, and many cases jump up from those who haven’t been fully vaccinated yet. Thanks God though it is not easy to make reservation for vaccination, we did our 2 shots in the clinic nearby home. Sure we will keep doing the best prevention because Enoch can’t be vaccinate yet, keep him safe when we all go out together.
For a better transportation to church after TMC resume worship service in person. Kevin keep practice driving during hot summer. He always ride scooter for an hour and half to the driver’s training course, then riding back home for an hour and half again after practice the skill of driving a car for 2 hours. His persistence made him passed his provisional driver’s license in his second attempts a few months! After he got his provisional driver’s license in Japan and several times practice with his trainer in streets of Tokyo, he is well prepared for his full license road test now, he is expecting to obtain his license in a month, to make their family transportation easier!
The vision of TMC is let all Christians from different cultural backgrounds can worship the Lord in Tokyo. The reason we were sent is to build up Chinese worship service in TMC. Thanks God for our monthly Chinese fellowship in the last four years. And we had been in contact with Chinese pastors and Christians who have the same vision, so that we can build up TMC Chinese Worship service together for long term. While some missionary dedicate is preparing to join us in near future, thanks God for leading Kevin go one more step forward for this goal. From October, he will begin to study the Master of Theological Studies(M.T.S.) program of China Evangelical Seminary North America(CESNA) online. Pls pray that he will glory God by balancing his family life, theological training and ministry.
Expect you will satisfy in the word of our Lord!
