October 2011 Update

It was Sunday afternoon, September 18th in Chigasaki, Japan. Suzanne and I were concluding two days of training about church multiplication in Nakamichi Sensei’s church. We had shared a lot of new information with the people, spoken in the morning about answering God’s call to minister in His name and now were answering questions from the congregation. There were the normal questions about the multiplication strategy and the process that we hoped to see. I had noticed one man in the group who had been fairly intense through most of the training. He had paid attention, but hadn’t said much. He raised his hand for a question and stunned me with it: “When can we get more of this training and begin doing this?” Wow! I was taken aback by the energy in his question. Not only had he understood the theory, he had caught the passion for the vision.

It’s times like that when I get a sense that God has something special planned for Japan. I’ve heard repeatedly that evangelism in Japan is very difficult and requires years to cultivate a relationship to the point one has the freedom to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. But, it wasn’t always so. In the early days of OMS’ ministry in Japan, in the days when Cowman, Kilbourne and Nakada launched the work of OMS and later initiated the goal of presenting the gospel to every home in Japan, the harvest was plentiful. There was a responsiveness to the gospel that seems unknown today. But, what is God planning to do? Pray Habakkuk 3:2 with us: “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”

Suzanne and I have just returned from a week in Spokane visiting two churches and a number of friends and supporters. Oh – and our family! It was great to see Steve & Kelly with Trainor, Ryley and Tierney. We don’t get to see them often and we enjoyed having some time with them this past week. (We also greatly appreciate their wonderful hospitality!) By the way, it was great to also be with David and Izabel, with Samantha, in Spokane. We got to all be together on Sunday night for a special family dinner at a new Asian restaurant – Asia Café & Bakery. We got to show the family the types of food Suzanne and I ate during our year in Central Asia: samsa (meat filled pastry), manti (dough filled with meat & onions), plov (rice with meat), carrot salad, Central Asian bread and lagman (noodles with vegetables – this in a soup). It was great!

It’s becoming very real to us that we’re due to leave for Japan in just a few weeks. My goodness! We have a lot of things to do before that! Please pray that we’ll be able to focus in the days ahead on the necessary tasks and put aside those things that won’t help us in our preparations. Also, we’re trying to schedule meetings with people and groups to share the opportunity to partner with us to tell the people of Japan about the Good News of Christ.

Here’s our schedule:
• October 23 – Hope Community Church in Lake Oswego, OR
• October 24-29 – With Glen & Michelle in Alabama
• November 5&6 – Swisshome and Mapleton Evangelical Churches

Thank you for your support and prayer!
Bob & Suzanne Warren

PS – We’re looking for a couple people who might want to help us communicate better. Here are two tasks that will make a real difference:
1. We have a couple of dozen prayer partners who don’t have email. We print and mail these email updates to them. Is there one or more of you who would like to help with this once we move to Japan? Email me if you’d like more information.
2. I keep being asked about our blog. Yes, we’d like to restart that. However, it takes me a great deal of time to deal with the technology aspects of it. Is there one of you who finds this easy and would like to work with me in setting it up and maintaining it? Let me know.