Tak & Chee Newsletter! Vol.16 EN

2024年4月3日 09:27

Happy Easter!
It was the day of Easter when Takeshi had a fever and was stuck on the bed.
But anyways, we made it through a year since we decided to be self-employed! Yay!

Aquila Church's vision is to
"produce" and "support"
a "modern Paul"
like Aquila and Priscilla.

It's been a year of nerves.

We had a year of monthly bills and taxes to pay, but we made it!
We are grateful for the support of so many people! We are also very grateful for electrical construction jobs that was given by Chie's father. Also our Aquila Coffee business was know local people little by little.
Thank you all so much for your prayers, financial support, and encouragement!
This past year has been a year of realizing and experiencing that God is already there in every step we take, protecting us one by one! We are so thankful!

"I'll help with the hi-b.a. rally in Nagano!"

I wrote in my last newsletter about cooperating with the work of hi-b.a. to start up a high school student evangelism in the Nagano region.
As soon as we sent out the newsletter, a few hours later, someone contacted us and said, "I'll help you with hi-b.a.! He invited us to his church, and the pastor said, "You are very welcomed here!" He encouraged us and prayed for us! We are supper encouraged!
We are feeling the power of your prayers tremendously!

Speaking of prayer, when we told a local high school freshman about hi-b.a., she said, "I've been praying for hi-b.a. to start meeting in my hometown!
We were really encouraged to know that I am here because of the prayers that have been piled up for a long time. Surrounded by so many prayers, we felt "we'll be fine! I and at the same time, we felt we want to proceed with great care.

We feel that our next step is to share our vision with the local Christian high school students with whom we are already connected.
Please pray that we will be given more local partners, cooperating churches, financial supporters, etc!
If you are interested in supporting us for this organization, please click on the link below!

For more information about hi-b.a.→　https://www.hi-ba.com/english/

We are going to Texas!

What a surprise, SOZO Church, who sent us a mission team last year, invited us to come to their conference! They even offered to pay for our travel expenses! so we are going to Texas!

We had assumed that we would never be able to go overseas again once we started plant a church, so this was a real surprise.
We contacted our associate pastors and Roo said she could go with us, so the three of us going to Texas together from Aquila Church.

Also, SOZO Church has an Equip Class.
Takeshi was asked to speak to that class about Aquila Church's vision and what God is doing in Japan.
We were very happy to see that they were really interested in our mission to Japan! But this is Takeshi's first time to give a one-hour presentation in English, so please pray for him!

Meeting with mission team

Another important meeting is with the SOZO Church mission team that will be coming this June. We are excited that the team will be coming from Texas again this year! Yay!
Many of the members came last time, and a few more new members will be coming, about 11 of them. (Our house will be packed).
We are very much looking forward to hearing about the team and their thoughts directly from them. The mission team is now doing some fundraising for missions, so please pray that their needs will be met and that their preparation will be blessed!

Click here for a video testimony of the last mission trip → https://youtu.be/8gtWZRpHfUw )

Recent Aquila church events

Adam and Ali

The previous Sozo church mission team member "Ali" and her husband "Adam" visited us!
Since it was just between the end of our ski instructor job and the beginning of our farming job, we were able to take them sightseeing in Kyoto and Nagano.

However, their missionary mindset was always on. So wherever they went, what they did was evangelism, relationship building, counseling, bible study, and so on. It was ministry every day. (LOL)
To add to that, they really seemed to enjoy every day, which was impressive to us. Their presence was truly a blessing at Aquila Church as well, especially Adam's sharing about the Fathers love impacted us. We look forward to meeting them in Texas!

Wedding of a dear friends

We attended the wedding of Andrew and Kanami, who always joins Aquila Church. It was a truly unique and love-filled wedding that words cannot describe, with over 360 people gathered at the Union Church in Karuizawa in the middle of a snowstorm.
On that wedding day, each of us was given a book full of testimonies and praises to God written by them, their families and their best friends.
And moreover, a cake from our cake shop, "Patisserie Pleinsoleil" the pride of Ueda City! The bride and groom handed it to each and every one of the attendees. We wish everyone reading this could have had some!

At the end of the feast, we were able to have worship time together with the members of Aquila Church and the people in the hall, and it was like a worship service!

It was a wedding that had a huge impact on us personally. It's a long story, so we hope to be able to share more about it sometime later.

List of "Needed" and "Likely Needed" items

Different things are needed as we move forward. Please pray that these specific needs will be given to us. Also, if anyone is willing to give any of the items on the list or sell them at a discount, please let us know.

7-8 passenger car - needed to transport mission teams and hi-b.a. high school students.
Tiller - needed to reduce work time and labor. We have physical limitations with manual labor with a mulch and shovel.
Laptop - to operate the projector at the venue and to work on the go.
3 pin microphones - for creating content for podcasts and online distributions.
Larger coffee maker - for use during church fellowship, meetings, mission team stays, etc.

Fundraising Report

1 more monthly supporters were given last month, bringing the total to 18 now!　

Monthly Support Amount Total 74,000 yen and $165
Monthly Supporters Total 18perosn

March 1st - 31th 2024
One-Time Donation Support Amount Total 35,000 yen

We are so grateful to have even more people arise to become supporters! Thank you for planting a church together! We feel that we are able to pour our time and energy more into ministry!

Support partners for Aquila Church

Aquila Church's vision is to "produce" and "support" a "modern Paul," just like Aquila and Priscilla did.

Monthly support target of $2500

We are looking for financial support partners to help us move toward the mission and vision given to the church.

50$ x 50 persons = 2500$
　50$/month for 50 support partners to continue to operate the church.

Credit card transfers can be made at the following URL
Starting from 10$/month, you can specify the amount and one-time support is available.
We would appreciate your prayerful consideration.

https://achurchjapan.wixsite.com/aquilachurchjapan/support-1