Go and Danielle Oishi Prayer Letter: Moving into a Bigger Church Building Just in Time!

Hallelujah! Starting at the beginning of May, our church has moved into our second building, with more rooms for Sunday school and an auditorium with twice the seating capacity. This was all in the Lord’s timing, as God gave us 17 people in attendance on our first Sunday there on May 5, including 4 first-time visitors and all 4 visitors from last month returning, including a young man who attends university close to three hours away who came into town the evening prior just to worship with us! We are truly thankful for His timely provision, as our old church office auditorium would not have been able to fit this many people. We are excited to report to you the many other victories that God has given us this month.

Needless to say, God gave our church a very smooth transition into our new Sunday schedule and meeting location, with all of our regulars still attending faithfully. As this building is owned by one of them, this was one of the smoothest contracts that we have signed thus far. We shifted our service times on Sundays to now have a 9:00 a.m. Bible study, an 11:00 a.m. worship, a 12:30 p.m. lunch fellowship, and a 1:00 p.m. Bible class as people finish their meals and enjoy refreshments. The 9:00 a.m. Bible study, as well as our 7:00 p.m. prayer and Bible study on Wednesday nights and our 2:00 p.m. Saturday outreach and church work are still held in our church office space. As our new building is less than 10 minutes away by car and we have been blessed with many willing hands to help, setting up and cleaning up after services have been a joyful time of serving together with the church. Though the 9:00 a.m. Bible study is still mainly just my wife and me, the Lord has allowed us to worship with an average of 10 people this month who mainly come to our other services on Sundays. Our Wednesday evenings are also starting to fill up, as God gave us an attendance of 6 on May 1, all of whom have been actively inviting everyone they know to our services. God gave us another first-time visitor on May 26. We praise God that He is building His church!

On Sunday, May 12, a young man, whom we had the privilege of leading to Christ and discipling during our time in Hokkaido, completely surprised us by visiting our church and helping us set up and clean up after every service! He had recently moved to northern Tokyo and commuted 2 hours one way just to worship with us. There is also a lost man from Hong Kong who drives 1.5 hours one way to attend our services regularly, as well as a lost Japanese man who takes his lunch breaks at work to attend our worship service, just to be around God’s people and hear unapologetic preaching from God’s Word. We are truly humbled by what people are willing to do to get truth from God’s Word and challenged by the scarcity of Gospel-preaching churches in our area. Please pray for these precious souls to get saved and for the saved to get busy spreading God’s Word! As one way to better equip our church not only to invite people to church but to be witnesses who are prepared to give the Gospel clearly to anyone at any time, we have partnered with the John316Story, a Gospel media and Bible study publication ministry of the Metro Baptist Church of Burnaby, British Columbia, in translating and adapting their material to the Japanese language. Thank you for praying for these precious souls, as well as for these projects to bring honor and glory to our God!

We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on May 19. None of these things would be possible without the amazing wife God has given me. We are so thankful that we, as one, have the privilege of representing you here in Japan!

Danielle’s Journey

It has been so exciting to watch God grow His church here in Kisarazu. It is so encouraging to have another Christian lady and friend to fellowship with in the church. We were able to invite her and her husband over for dinner on May 16 to get to know them better. We also had a surprise guest this month! Our friend from Hokkaido moved to the Tokyo area and traveled over two hours to surprise us and join us for services one of the Sundays this month. We have been so blessed with friends to encourage us in each place that God has led us. We also celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary this month. I’m so thankful for my Godly husband and for the fact that we are able to serve the Lord together. Everyone seems to have adjusted to the new church location and schedule. We are so thankful that God provided a larger location. We no longer have to worry about what we will do when we have more people than our space allows! After our main services, we enjoy a meal, which I either prepared that morning or the night before, with all those in attendance. This has been a great way to get to know each person better. Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. It means so much to know we have so many faithful friends praying for us and our ministry here.

Your friends and co-laborers to Japan,

Go and Danielle Oishi