December Ministry Update 2020
Dear Friends and Ministry Partners,
I hope you are having a joyful Christmas week! I'm excited to be with my family for another holiday season. I know it's already started for some, but before most of the festivities begin and we get caught up in other things, I wanted to share this newsletter and my thoughts with you. I've been reflecting more on the last twelve months and although it's been a hard year, there's been a lot of good too.
I want to acknowledge the realness and challenges of this hard year, but I don't want to get too caught up in it either. Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus who came to give us hope even when things hit rock bottom.
So, while I'm celebrating and remembering the birth of my savior, I'm also going to be remembering how He's worked in me this year through the challenges and be praying for Him to continue to do so next year. Below is my highlights and prayer requests from my year. I hope you can join me in reflection and prayer. At the end, I've also detailed some of my plans and hopes for 2021.
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Overall:
2020 started off really well. In February I met Kevin and John in Los Angeles for a church planting training. It was great seeing my teammates and I was excited to learn more about church planting so I could be better equipped when I got back to Japan. As a follow up, the three of us and our teammate Sarah went to the Exponential Conference on church planting in Orlando, Florida in early March. These two things were supposed to kick off six months of training, except that plan unfortunately fell apart due to a few reasons, one of the biggest being the pandemic.
After the conference in Florida, I flew to Virginia before going home to see some of my friends from college who I hadn't seen in years. I really enjoyed seeing them again and had hoped to be able to make another trip down there, but unfortunately that wasn't able to happen this year either.
When I got back to Vermont after my time in Virginia, I spoke at a church on Sunday and the next week everything was shut down.
From that point on, the restrictions and complications due to the coronavirus made visiting churches and travel much harder, but I'm grateful for technology that allowed me to connect with people virtually. Since March, I've been able to talk with individuals and churches through Zoom and even visit a few while social distancing and wearing masks.
While partnership development is not easy, I always find it rewarding to share about how God is working in Japan so I've been glad that I've still been able to do it even in a more limited way.
Another challenge this year has been the struggles and transitions at my home church. It's been hard for me to come back after being away for a few years and see my church hurting, but with travel limited and support raising being slow, I've actually been able to spend more time at my church and with the people there.
I've also been able to be more involved. While my church planting training plan for earlier in the year didn't happen, the ways I've been able to organize, plan, and assist different ministries at my church has been been training me instead. So I'm grateful for the opportunity to still learn even if it wasn't what I originally planned on doing.
Besides my quick month back in Japan in October, I've spent most of the year away from my team and from the ministry. Thankfully though, I've been able to keep in contact with everyone and feel connected by being involved in some of the planning for future ministry. Every month my team has gotten together over Zoom to update each other on how we are doing and to pray for everyone. It's been a huge blessing for me and it helps keep me sane while I'm away from Japan and separated from everyone.
Pray for:
- My home church - pray for healing for my church as well as wisdom and discernment for the leaders and church body as we go through many transitions
- For me to be equipped - pray for me that I would be able to take what I've learned and apply it to my ministry in Japan
- For good connections with my team - while I am still away from my team and ministry, pray that I could stay connected with them and be encouraged
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Kevin, John, and I after our church planting training in LA.
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My Time in Tokyo:
One of my favorite opportunities I had this year was being able to go back to Japan in October for about a month. If you missed my last newsletter, I shared a video update about my time there which you can check out here: November Update 2020.
It was such a privilege to be back even if just for a short time. Thankfully, by being back I resolved my residence status issue which was the main reason for going, but it was also great to see some of my teammates and reconnect with my church and other ministries.
Besides seeing people, one of the best things to come out of my time in Japan was a renewing and revitalization of my calling. After being in the states for so long, of course I keep the main thrust of my calling, but it's easy to forget the small things and reasons why God wants me there. Those things can be just the simple joy of getting to pray for the Japanese people as I pass them by on the street or on the train, but it can also be not being able to fully grasp the current needs of the Japanese people.
One of the days I was there, I spoke with a missionary friend that explained to me some of the struggles Japanese churches are having through covid that churches in America are not having to deal with. It's one thing to hear about something like that over email or a phone call, but to hear it in person and experience it in person is totally different.
Another thing I've heard about this year, which goes for everywhere, not just Japan, but has a special relevance to Japan, is that isolation and other affects of the pandemic have caused an increase in mental health issues for many. Japan already has high rates of depression and suicide and unfortunately a large stigma attached to mental health issues as well. Knowing this helped me know of specific ways to pray for Japan while I was there and gave me a desire to connect with certain people who I knew struggled with mental health in the past.
One way I believe that we can help people who struggle with loneliness, depression, and other mental health issues is to provide them with intentional community which is exactly what the churches my team has planted are doing. As part of my calling, I want to see them grow and for new intentional small group churches to be planted.
So, I'm more excited than ever to get back to the ministry in Tokyo. There is a huge need and God has called me go.
Pray for:
- My church in Japan - pray that they would continue to grow in their relationships with Christ and be able to provide intentional community.
- The youth in my church - pray for the new youth program that my church has recently started and for the youth who are struggling
- Raising up new leaders - pray that new leaders could be raised up out of our churches to plant new ones
- The lonely and depressed - pray for those who are struggling in Japan right now that they would find their hope in Christ and see their ultimate worth in Him.
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Reunited with my team in Tokyo this past October!
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Team Updates:
Currently we only have three full-time teammates in Tokyo. That's been the case for all of 2020 which is not normal for us and put some strains on the ministry. Covid has really thrown off a lot of our team's plans. Even with many of us still in the states though, amazingly, our team has grown quite a bit in the past year! We've gone from seven to eleven people!
Our new teammate Sarah, who has been raising support for three years, has reached 100% and will finally be arriving on the field in January! Sarah went on an Apex trip to Tokyo the year before me, but I didn't meet her until our Asia Division conference in February 2019. I got to see her again earlier this year (in March before covid) at a church planting conference in Orlando. Sarah is a lot of fun to be around and I'm really excited to have her joining our team.
Another new teammate, Melanie, has reached 100% of her support and will be arriving in Tokyo in early January as well! Melanie was serving in Hokkaido (Northern Japan), but unfortunately her teammates retired and she wasn't sure what she should do. She visited us in Tokyo in December 2018 to explore her options and we saw her again at the Asia Division conference in February 2019. Finally after praying about it more, she felt called to Tokyo and she officially joined our team. Melanie has such a deep passion for ministry and is going to be a great addition to the team.
A third teammate, Kevin, is also fully funded and will be flying back to Tokyo later this month! Kevin and I served together for two years in Japan as short-termers and both felt called to transition into long-term ministry. He's been raising his support this past year and was at 90% a few days before the end of November. His goal was to reach 100% before December and God provided that last 10% just before the end of the month! Kevin is such a crucial part of the team and has some great opportunities to share the gospel with a couple Japanese guys he's friends with that I'm really glad that he's going back soon. I can't wait to join him again in Japan.
We are thankful as a team that Sarah, Melanie, and Kevin will be joining the Nakazawas and Michiyo in Japan soon and that our team can go from three to six members on the field. As far as those of us still in the States, there's me and the Lee's who are still on home assignment and raising support. Then, we also have our two newest team members.
Last month, we accepted Kim and Krystle onto our team. Kim applied for long-term and Krystle for short-term. Kim has been working with Apex and doing college ministry at Winona State University in Minnesota for the last few years and has led teams to Tokyo for the last three Decembers. Krystle was a part of those teams and then helped lead last December. Through their short-term trips they felt called to missions in Japan and to our team. I met them both on their second trip in 2018 when I helped organize their time in Tokyo. I loved working with them and I'm really excited to have them join us. They're hoping to raise their support and join the team in Tokyo either next year or the year after.
Pray for:
- The Lee's - pray for John's dad who has been experiencing health issues this past year. Pray as well for the rest of the support that they need to raise and other details that need to be worked out for them to return
- Smooth transitions for Kevin, Sarah, and Melanie onto the field in January
- Kim and Krystle - pray for them as they raise support in the next year and prepare to go to the field
- Michiyo's support - pray for my teammate Michiyo who is also currently raising support in Japan right now
- Pray for us to all be back together next year!
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The team including Melanie and Sarah in one of our monthly Zoom calls.
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2021 Plans:
Currently I have about 50% of my monthly support and 50% of my start-up costs. I still need about $3,500 in monthly commitments and about $18,000 in one-time gifts to reach 100%. If you are interested, you can check out a breakdown of those by opening the Financial Breakdown document on my website or you contact me and I'd be happy to tell you more.
I plan to continue raising up more people and churches who will partner with me financially and in prayer in the next year until I've reached 100%. My goal is to be fully funded by March 1st, 2021. My visa is expiring that month so it is ideal for me to return before that happens, but my team is also expecting me as they will have mostly all returned by that point.
There are a lot of exciting opportunities for ministry in Tokyo next year too, especially with the Olympics coming up in the summer. My teammates, the Nakazawas, will also be going on home assignment and it would be great to be back before they leave.
So, to reach this goal, I already have a few exciting things planned. In early January I have a couple churches that I will be connecting with. I have a meeting with one over Zoom on the 5th and I will be speaking in person at another on the 10th. I'm very grateful for these opportunities and looking forward to seeing where they lead!
Beyond that, I'm trusting in God to provide, and I also want to ask you, if you aren't already, to be praying that I can be fully supported by March 1st! As you are praying, and if you aren't already, then also consider supporting me monthly. Any amount helps! If you can't commit to giving financially giving, you can still help me by connecting me with others that you know. You can do it through email, by sending them to my website, or I can send you my prayer cards to give out. Just let me know! Your recommendations are very helpful to me too!
Below I have a graphic that shows my goal of having 80 partners at different giving levels. If you want to partner with me and be part of my team to help reach the Japanese for Christ, then please reach out to me.
Of course, none of this would be possible without those of you who are praying and supporting me so I want to thank you again!
Pray for:
- Recovery from the pandemic - pray that the vaccine and other measures would be effective against the coronavirus and that we can return to normal soon
- My connection with churches - pray for the two opportunities I have in January, that they would be fruitful and a blessing to those I'm meeting with as well
- My support - pray that I can be fully funded by March 1st, 2021
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End of year giving:
All donations, monthly or one-time gifts, are tax deductible. If you are interested in giving an end of the year gift, you can look at the partnership page on my website for how to do that, or click on the Give Online button below. If you are sending in a check and would like it to be included in your giving for this year, then please date it and send it in before the 31st.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me at adam.bailey@efca.org or by phone at 802-461-4771. Thanks!
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If you'd like to give a one-time or recurring gift, click on the link below!
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Thanks for reading!
This newsletter has been a bit longer than usual so thanks for sticking through to the end! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
- Adam Bailey
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