Yabuki Breeze Blog

This was a good day of ministry. Our team of many ministries and partners were allowed to have a table a UTA orientation today and it was a real blessing. We were able to invite many of them to the Big Howdy party and other events to welcome them. Over 100 of 500 new students were there and we met most of them with flyers, etc. Two people especially stand out today. First, I met a Japanese student while passing out flyers and after talking we found that our grandparents were both from the same small, rural county in Japan. It was really cool because it is such a remote place and there was an immediate connection. Interestingly, right when I got home, I found that I got a friend request on facebook from the very same student. I hope God will allow us to build a friendship through this that would allow us to talk about significant things.

A second person who made an impression is Phillip who is a Japanese American ministry partner from the BSM. He is the new intern who, with his wife, will be interning working with interntional students. As I shared yesterday, one of the cool things about what we do is that we so many things together with others, working together in Kingdom work. The BSM has been one of our best partners and Phillip is no exception. He has a gentle but persistent way about him that I believe God will use greatly in touching students’ lives. It really is an honor to work closely together and its kind of funny how I see a lot of myself in this younger Japanese-American man.

Finally… I just wanted to say how much I appreciate my wife, Lisa. She is a real blessing to me. Her faithfulness,  patience, love for me and the kids etc. are just so much of a blessing. One of the hard things about being away from family is that we often have to do things alone… I still miss everyone so much. And yet because we have been away, we have learned to trust each other so much more, seeing each other and having to depend on each other even when we are at our best and worst and that has been such a blessing. Praise God!

Tags: Big Howdy, BSM, Japanese, Lisa

(check out pictures) J-11 and I (Lisa) had a great week in Amarillo with 25 6th grade graduates from Fielder Road Baptist Church. Our church has a program to prepare kids from 3rd to 6th grade to go on this mission trip when they finish the 6th grade. To be honest, I wasn’t sure when Jonathan was a 3rd grader that he would be ready for this, but he was! In fact, all of our kids really stepped up and learned how to seize the day and not let opportunities go by that God puts in front of us to do things for him. I like what our children’s pastor says, that we aren’t building the church of tomorrow; it’s the church today.

Our kids helped Citychurch prepare 1400 sack lunches each day, which included a hot item, fresh popcorn, cookies, and fresh fruit. I can proudly say that I learned how to run a popcorn machine! Our kids ran a 4-day VBS which included music, games, a puppet show and Bible story. We also participated in going on bus routes to hand out lunches to the needy kids of Amarillo. For me, it was heartbreaking when we visited one really run-down apartment complex and ran out of lunches for all the kids that wanted one. A lot of our kids were shocked at how special it was when we included a toothbrush one day in the lunch sacks. You would have thought they won the lottery!

During the week we saw 15 kids led to Christ by the 6th graders. Even though J-11 didn’t lead someone to Christ on the trip, he was motivated to share with his best friend from school the next Sunday, and his friend prayed to receive Christ! It was exciting to see him have that kind of boldness. All in all, it was an eye-opening and very exhausting week, but well worth it.

Check out the Mission Trip website for more pictures.

Tags: Amarillo, Jonathan, Lisa, Mission Trip