I have some big news! In about a week I will be on my way to Michigan! I am going to be moving to Grand Rapids for the next few months. I have been working on these plans for a while now but I'm excited to finally be sharing them with you. It's honestly been a joy to be back home this last year and a half even though I didn't expect it would be this long. I'm really happy for all of the time I've been able to spend with my family and I've been blessed by the tremendous support and encouragement you all have given me here in Vermont. I've learned a lot too about myself, about waiting on God, and about ministry as I've worked with my home church. While that's all been great, it's started to feel like the doors for support have begun to close here.

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 glad that it is finally getting warmer here in Vermont! It's been hard hearing about the spring weather and cherry blossoms from my friends in Tokyo while there's still been snow outside my house. As winter has given way to spring, I've been hoping that I too could enter into a new season of ministry and support raising. I have many new and exciting things on the horizon, but still some challenges as well.

Already, 2021 has gotten off to a busy (but good!) start for me and my team. As far as my support goes, I've been floating around the 50% mark for a while, but this last month I finally passed it! I've been blessed to have four new partners join me recently that pushed me over the halfway mark. I still have a long journey ahead of me, but through everything that's happened I have been very encouraged and am excited to see how God is going to continue to work.

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 have an exciting update for you. I hope it can bring you some good news in this season of divide and uncertainty!

I'm back in Japan!

Thank you for your generous prayer and support that allowed me to make this trip back to Japan.

I'm excited to share with you that I'm making a trip back to Tokyo! Japan started allowing people with visas and resident status back into the country at the beginning of September. I have both of those, but my resident status is about to expire in October so I'm flying back to Japan for about a month to renew my resident status until my visa expires next March. I'll be gone from October 6th to November 2nd.

Today (8/7) would have been the last day of Olympic events and the closing ceremony would have been on Sunday. I remember around a year ago excitedly talking with my language school classmates about who had won tickets from the ticket lottery to go to the Olympics and what our plans were for the event. I didn't apply for any tickets, but I mentioned how the opening ceremony was going to be held on my birthday and how I hoped to be back in Japan.

When Covid-19 started to become more serious back in March I'd hope that it would be over and that I'd be much farther along in my support by summertime. Well, almost four months later Covid-19 is still here and I'm not much closer to being fully funded so I can return to Japan. It's a hard reality to face and I know I'm not alone in having unmet expectations like this.

I pray that you are all staying healthy and safe! I've been mostly good although being stuck at home is starting to make me a little restless. Many of you have asked me what I've been doing in the last couple months and I apologize I haven't sent out a newsletter sooner.

Over the last couple years a passage that I keep coming back to in difficult times is Psalm 121. I saw it again recently and I wanted to share the first two verses with you. "I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1-2”

Last week, as part of the introduction to a church planting training I was participating in, the facilitator, Ray Chang, asked an interesting question, "What is the goal of the church?" He had just laid some groundwork explaining the origin of the church and how the Great Commission is essentially a command to plant churches.

After about a five month process, I'm excited to share with you that I've been reaccepted to ReachGlobal to serve in Japan as a long-term missionary! I really appreciate all your prayers and encouragement through this process. God first put it on my heart to seriously consider returning to Japan about a year ago so it's amazing to see how he's led me each step of the way. 

I'm back in the states! I've been back for about a week now and I just wanted to send this quick update to tell you about my last few weeks in Japan and let you know what some of my plans are for the coming year. 

I've been excited to send out this newsletter because I have so many things to share with you all! The past couple months have been filled with teams and visitors, events and lasts, goodbyes and good news.