Go and Danielle Oishi Prayer Letter: Preparing for Harvest

Praise the Lord! We signed our first official contract with our real estate agent for the building of our home in Kisarazu, as well as what will become the Kisarazu Kibō (“Hope”) Baptist Church office building! It is exciting to see the plans that we outlined in our previous praise report start to take shape, and we are thankful for all of your prayers and investments, which God is continuing to use to make the necessary preparations to spread the Gospel in Kisarazu.

In our previous report, we had reported that we were able to secure a very favorable plot of land for our home and church office building through a real estate company. The actual signing of the contract to go with this company was planned for the middle of September; however, after looking at other options and receiving counsel from an experienced staff member of the Senri Newtown Baptist Church, we ultimately decided to go with a different company. This actually ended up being a bit of a hectic process, but with each step of the way, God gave us peace about canceling with this company to try another, even if it meant risking the land that we were able to secure through the original real estate company up to this point. We were able to fully pull out by the 14th, and we quickly began again the process from the beginning with a new company on the 18th. To our surprise, this new company was able to secure the same plot of land for us before it was taken and gave us much more reasonable rates for the building of our property! From mortgage options to the design, this company has given us far better options than the original. Even in navigating through the legal aspects of planning this combination property, they handled our case much more professionally to ensure that the church-office portion can legally fulfill its eventual purposes of holding public services and registering our activities to gain the legal power of becoming visa sponsors for future missionaries to Japan. Needless to say, we are beyond grateful that God has given us good counselors! After six real estate office visits and countless hours of research and counsel, we signed the contract with our new real estate company on the 25th.

All of this was being done while having the honor of assisting another missionary family to Japan with their visa paperwork. The Morgan family, a missionary family of eight, is in their last phase of deputation and is planning to come to Osaka for their survey trip in December, with their permanent arrival scheduled for the spring of 2023. For quite some time, we have had the joy and privilege of guiding them through their immigration process. This month has truly been a time of much studying, but we are thankful that we have been given the opportunity to become better informed about the laws and procedures regarding missions work in Japan. Our prayer is that all of our learning now will better equip us to reach more souls and help more laborers reach souls in Japan.

We were presented with the refreshing opportunity to escape all of this and the urban life for a short time to visit rural Hokkaido, the northernmost island in Japan. The Immanuel Seisho (“Bible”) Baptist Church of Nayoro and their pastor, Missionary Randy Smith, invited us to speak at their special evangelistic service, as well as visit other laborers in that region. We left on the 26th and had the privilege of briefly witnessing to two people on the airplane, sharing my testimony with two unsaved doctors on the day we landed, participating in a Pastors’ Fellowship on the 27th, giving a challenge in the midweek service on the 28th, and meeting two additional missionary families on the 30th, with an added bonus of touring the northernmost point in Japan. Though we must save this for our next praise report, God did something wonderful at the evangelistic service on October 2. We look forward to sharing with you what God has done!

Danielle’s Journey

This month consisted mostly of continuing my language study, as well as serving in the children’s classes at the church. I am very excited that our move to Kisarazu is getting closer. Going to the building planning meetings with my husband makes it feel like our dream will soon become real! We are so excited to plant a church and make Kisarazu our home! I will also miss everyone at the church here though; they have taught us so much and have been so kind to us since we arrived. We are so thankful for them.

Towards the end of this month, we had our trip to Hokkaido. It was such an encouragement to get to know the missionary families up there. Getting to know the missionary wives up there was a special blessing. Thank you all so much for your continual thoughts and prayers. They mean so much to us, especially with such big changes coming up in our lives.

Your friends and co-laborers to Japan,

Go and Danielle Oishi