May Ministry Update 2021
Dear Friends and Ministry Partners,
May 1st has come and gone and unfortunately I have not been able to leave yet for Japan. Despite pushing back my departure date, I still have a lot to be excited about and encouraged by.
In many ways, it feels like I am entering into a new season of my time here in the States. I have completed the SLA training, I'm nearly done with my BBE online class, and I am finishing up my work for the ministerial licensure process. The biggest thing I have left to do before leaving now is to raise the rest of my support, and I'm excited to announce that I have finally passed 60% of what I need!
I am hopeful that I'll be able to raise my support by the fall, and to help me do that, I bought a car! God provided a great opportunity to buy a used but reliable car at a great price that will allow me to travel to visit people and churches, especially with restrictions easing up in the coming months.
Besides waiting on support to come in, Japan's borders are also still closed and they are not approving new visas at the moment which means I will have to wait until they reopen. My team doesn't think that will happen until September or October. So, that's my new goal is to be fully funded and ready to go by then!
As we get closer to the summer I'm hoping to have some more updates and exciting developments to share, but for now, please be praying for the opportunities I have and for me to finish up the things I have going on now. You can read more about what I currently have going on below. Thanks for following along on this journey with me!
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I am very excited to have finally passed 60% of my monthly support! It feels like I have been floating in the 40-50% range for a long time, so I'm hoping to keep up this momentum. I've had some awesome new partners join recently and one of those that I'm excited to share with you is Lanse Evangelical Free Church in Lanse, PA. I've shared in previous updates that I've been talking with them for a while. It's been great getting to know them. They have been supporting EFCA missionaries for over 100 years, so I'm excited to partner with them and be a part of that awesome tradition! Praise God for them and for all of my partners who have given so generously.
Now that I have a car and churches are starting to open up more, please continue praying for opportunities to develop new partners. Please be praying for my time this summer too that even though many people will be going on vacation or taking time off that I'd still be able to connect with them.
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My time in North Carolina for my second language acquisition (SLA) training went really well. It was nice to spend time out of Vermont and with other missionaries since I haven't been a part of a community like that in a while.
For the training we had classes every day on a range of topics from how we personally learn languages, to how language and culture interact, to phonetics. It almost felt like being back in school again because we had homework as well, but I learned a lot. It was especially helpful to better understand how I learn and what kind of environment I learn best in. They gave us a lot of great tools for learning a language as well. I think it will all be very useful to my Japanese learning once I return to Japan and I'm hoping to apply some of what I learned to my personal study before I get back too.
Thank you for your prayers for this training. Pray that I could continue studying well and effectively and that I will be able to prepare myself for full-time language learning when I return.
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Language Helper Sessions
One of the language learning methods they taught us at the training was how to work with a language helper. I was in a group that was working with an awesome teacher from the Philippines who was teaching us Tagalog as our example language. Using pictures and actions we started learning basic words and phrases and by the end of our fifth session could recognize full sentences. The method we learned can be applied to any language and most skill levels so I'm hoping to work with a language helper in Japan.
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I am nearly done with my Building Bridges with English (BBE) online course. I only have a few assignments left to finish up. I am glad that I took the class because it has given me some good ideas on how I can use teaching English for my personal ministry and how we can have short-term teams come to Tokyo and teach English. The Japanese learning that I've done has been a big help in giving me a better understanding of how someone might learn English and the challenges that they face when learning a second language. I'm looking forward to seeing how God uses this for ministry in Japan.
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While I've been at the SLA training and finishing up my BBE class, my ministerial licensure work has mostly been put on hold, but I'm hoping to begin working on it again and finish it up soon. I'm currently working on the theological paper that I'm going to have to defend so I want to make sure I know my stuff! I hope I can share more in my next update.
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Prayer Requests
- Pray for my teammates. I currently have teammates all over the States and in Tokyo. For those in Japan be praying for their ministry and team unity especially as my team leaders the Nakazawas are preparing to go on home assignment for a year starting in July. For those in the States, pray for those of us who are raising support to do so quickly and for those who are waiting for the borders to open to have peace with that timing and that they could spend the time well.
- Pray for my support. Currently I have 60% of my monthly support and about 102% of my start-up costs. I still need about $2,600 in monthly commitments to reach 100%. My goal is to have 80 partners. Right now I have 54. Pray that God would place people and churches in my path that would partner with me and that these needs would be met in miraculous ways.
- Pray for my time management. I still have some work on my online course and ministerial license application and paper. Pray that I could finish those well and manage my time time appropriately between those things and support raising. With everything going on it is easy to be overwhelmed so be praying as well for good times of rest and sabbath.
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Thanks for reading!
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me at adam.bailey@efca.org or by phone at 802-461-4771. You can also go to my website at adamintokyo.com. Thanks! - Adam Bailey
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