a time to pray

Hello friends, Jeremy here. Today marks 4 years since I started working for the best company I've ever been a part of. In that time I have had the extreme privilege of helping over 300 veterans and their families into homes to call their own. It's good to look back over the years and also even more specifically over the last few months. As we near the end of the month of October, we have realized how we have allowed ourselves to fill our lives with a lot of things over the summer. Now, the reality is, most if not all of these are good things. Leanna is engaged with a local Rugby team and having a blast and building friendships, Evee is now at a local elementary school as a peer mentor Monday - Thursday mornings, I've taken on a more active life style by riding my bike and making time for the gym more regular as well as fellowship with fellow geeks through a couple role playing groups that meet semi regularly (If you remember from our last post in September, we were getting ready to give small TED Talks in our Missional Community and Role Playing Games is the subject I chose), and Verity, well she is along for the ride as an 18 month old and constantly looking to discover and explore new things.

All of that to say that Leanna and I took a look at our calendar earlier in the month and saw how busy we had been and how busy things are looking for the fall. As we did, I began to realize how there was one very important piece not showing up on our calendar, Japan. Yes we still have our Japanese language classes every couple weeks (Thanks Anna!) but at the same time, we've lost our intentionality in actively engaging in steps to get us there as soon as possible. I feel convicted. Maybe you've been somewhere similar in your life with all the different meetings and trips and social events and so on and so forth either in the past or even right now like us. It's easy, I think, sometimes to live so much in the moment that we lose sight of the bigger picture, the grander scheme. It's why I think taking an audit of our lives semi regularly is a good thing, because it is so easy to get off track. So this coming weekend, Leanna and I are going to spend a significant amount of time in prayer specifically for Japan as well as strategizing what steps we need to make to continue to move forward in where we feel God calling us, that is, life along side fellow believers in Fuchu, Tokyo with Yoshi's church plant Soma Fuchu. Would you join us this weekend in praying for us. Pray that God would graciously show up as we seek to humble ourselves and seek His face. Pray that even as we work through repentance and faith that we would be encouraged by the hope of the Gospel and by God's sovereignty over our intentions for Japan and the timing and the finances and all the little details we haven't even thought of yet. Pray for wisdom as we seek to continue moving forward. Also, let us know how we can pray for you over the upcoming Fall and Winter, it would be our joy to lift you up in prayer as well during this time. We love you and are so thankful to be able to share our lives with you for God's glory and His Kingdom.