Leaders of the Japanese returnee ministry are meeting today in Southern California to plan for the next year.
After breakfast, they met via Skype with ministry partners, Kuni Sano, in Japan, and Julio and Joanne Maríns, and their children, Julian and Junie, who plan to relocate soon from Florida to Southern California to work with the ministry.
Phil Helfer, pastor of the Los Altos Grace Brethren Church, Long Beach, encouraged the group to keep planting seeds, noting that God is at work in Japan. “God is obviously wanting to do something here,” he said. “Maybe it is part of the bigger plan of God doing something there.”
The group, led by Encompass partner, Cecil O’Dell, is spending the rest of day listening to God and determining the direction of the ministry for the next year.
The ministry builds relationships with Japanese individuals who are in the U.S. for a short time. (Many of them are students.) Surfing lessons and a gospel choir are two of the ways they reach out and make friends. They also lead evangelistic Bible studies and do one-on-one discipling.