We praise and thank our Father in heaven, who blessed us with a wonderful extended weekend with our disciples from our churches in Japan. In a beautiful corner of Japan, away from the hustle and bustle of the larger cities, disciples from Fukuoka, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, and Tokyo gathered together for 4 days and 3 nights of fellowship, prayer, preaching and fun.

The theme of this year’s Japan Jubilee was “The Glory of the New Temple” (Haggai 2:9). After a time of testing, God promised the Israelites that the new temple they were laboring to build would surpass the glory of the old temple. We borrowed from this theme and asked God to show us how this can and will come true in our time as well.

Our keynote speakers were Harliem and Vania Salim, who oversee the churches in Indonesia.God used them to encourage and build up our faith. Hearing about how God has been working in Indonesia inspired us to believe once again that our God can do anything. We thank God for our relationships with other churches, especially here in Asia.

JooHyun and HyeJung Kim, who lead the church in Taegu, Korea were also special guests. They brought along 5 other disciples from Korea and their presence brought us great joy, especially to our Korean ministry here in Tokyo.

Many disciples (especially the brothers) work a great deal of overtime, so it was such a special time to gather and have uninterrupted fellowship for 4 straight days. Many stayed up until the wee hours of the morning in fellowship, while others got up before the sun did and went on prayer walks together. We shared many prayers, tears, laughter and reflections as we enjoyed various Bible classes and activities. On Sunday night we had a baptism, and several friends who had stopped studying the Bible but came to the Jubilee were motivated to start seeking God again.

This year’s Jubilee was a great boost of faith for everyone, especially for our brothers and sisters in our local churches. We thank God and look forward to seeing God build up His Temple to display His glory more than ever.

Rich Hayashi, Associate Evangelist

Tokyo Church of Christ

www.tccnet.org