Send-off and News from Japan
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- Sunday our house quickly filled up with all the supplies we were taking over. The boxes in the back are filled with Japanese Christian literature, which the guys were going to mass distribute. That makes me super excited!!
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- Despite the looks on their faces, the kids were thrilled that our living room was transformed into a packing station..so much to do and play with!!
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- Some of our baggage. Everything was a little over the weight limit but the Delta staff were really lenient with us. Just another answer to prayer!
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- Four of the eight on the team…all the Orlando locals…
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- One last blurry, kids-not-paying-attention family photo…some things never change.
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- “What’s Japan? Is there milk involved?”
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- Daniel Josiah’s tearful goodbye to his Daddy…
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- Daddy and Trinity
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- Daddy saying goodbye to Katy-Grace, who had no clue he was about to go half way around the globe and into nuclear reactor’s way
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- Daddy’s little helper
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- Many people were praying that our goodbyes would not be too sad and that would have a smooth transition from saying goodbye to Daddy and heading to lead backyard Bible club, well, God answered that prayer in the form of this Spiderman picture. (who would have thought?) It provided a great distraction as Spiderman holds a special place in my kids hearts.
***I just got off the phone with Danny. News update and prayer requests-
-Martin, the doctor on the trip is, ironically, sick with the flu and had to stay behind. Please pray for rapid recovery. He is scheduled to rejoin the team on Saturday (our Friday)
-Danny and the team were waiting in a line that was backed up 6 kilometers in order to get gas. Please pray that somehow they’ll get a connection with a quicker gas source. See below for a really neat story my father-in-law sent.
-Pray for Ai-chan who Danny sat next to on the flight. As he explained to this older Japanese woman, that he had left his family to come help the Japanese people in their time of need and tell them about the love of God, she started tearing up. Pray that God will be at work in her heart and that she would read the Christian literature that he gave her and that she would truly meet this God who IS LOVE.
Praises:
(from Dan Iverson) A Story of Community: To get gas, we organized church members to stand for hours in the gas lines to fill up small tanks that we could transport north. One of our church members was talking with her neighbor. When her neighbor asked what we were transporting north, our church member mentioned gasoline. It just so happens, this neighbor’s husband owns a gas station. Since learning about what we are doing, her husband has given our church a large tank to transport fuel. He also comes each morning and fills all our tanks, kerosine to warm peoples houses and diesel for transport to take to the north. Of course we pay him, but he gives it to us straight from the truck, as much as we need! No more waiting in lines. He has been doing this for 2 days and will continue, praise the Lord.
An encouraging story: A Wycliffe missionary, supported by our church, Oyumino, has been helping out with the relief efforts and has been three times to some of the hardest hit areas in the north. He has traveled three times with our trucks, close inside the evacuation zones and braved the threat of radiation with our trucks and team. A team came from USA yesterday with a radiation detector and they checked him. His levels were zero. NO exposure. We are praising God for this encouraging news! He has shown Himself to be a refuge!
