A call from God
We have been serving at Moriyama church with Pastor Nagasawa since 2011. Sawada san (who attends Kaori Church) came to Moriyama church on Oct. 2016. He is living in Indonesia as a painter but would comes to Kaori church whenever he is back in Japan which he does twice a year. He asked us to consider serving in Kaori church. He told us there are no pastor nor missionary and the most of members and worshippers had left Kaori Church. The church also had a burden of rental fee, so the church will be have to close. We had served Kaori church previously for 2 years from Sept 2009 when we came to Japan and studied the Japanese Language. The area has no church nearby and we felt that God would want that there should be a church. We trusted God’s power saying “Go, I will be with you”. So we decided to serve in Kaori church from Dec. 2016. Fortunately, Pastor Nagasawa and members of Moriyama Church agreed to help Kaori church by giving sermons and playing the piano for a worship services.
He always provide
We began serving Moriyama Church in the morning and Kaori Church in the afternoon. The couple of Sawada san and one other Christian became the member of Kaori Church. Some Korean class students also came to attend Koari church and they also helped. Now there are about 15 people attending the worship every week. It was difficult to pay the rent for the building we were using. So we bought our own house in Feb. Since then we also had a difficult situation financially but we look forward how God will provide for us. When we moved out from Kaori church, the owner of church building required us to restore it to it’s original state. Someone informed us that it will cost an estimated ¥2,000,000. We prayed and many friends (who were not professionals) helped and in the end we paid ¥200,000 only. For all of us it was a miracle from God.
God send helpers
In Mar 2018, Larry & Susan from Singapore joined Kaori Church and Christina also begun to serve and preach a sermon once a month. In addition, Kaori Church now have a Rainbow Gospel Choir. We reach out through the bible study, chorus class of gospel song, exercise class, cooking class, English bible class, English classes of for children in summer. We also join the community of this area like the club of sport and telling story, etc. So we can do outreach at school, kindergarten and senior people. Lillian specially teach the hand acupuncture and heal them. We are praying for the baptism of some of the worshippers and more children to come to Jesus and be saved. We are also praying for the believers who had stopped coming to church. Even though we are now on furlough, all worshippers continues to be in one body. We continue to support the ministry of the Church. We know God is alive and He is working powerfully for Japan ministry. We had dedicated our lives when we were 55 years old and we continue to feel that God is so faithful. We hope that we will continue to be healthy both spiritually and physically for next stage of our ministry.
Footnote: Kaori means Fragrance.
Contributed by Dean and Lillian Kim