Dear partners in the Gospel,Christmas Greeting"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” We wish you a very happy Christmas. For those who are in Australia trying to survive in the heat, thinking of us in Osaka might cool you down.Our life in OsakaIt has been a year since I arrived in Japan with our children to start living. It went very quickly and was a year in which we thought about many things.Schools are busy in the second term. Natan’el went on an overnight-stay school trip to Wakayama where my father was born and raised. Setsuli went on two excursions. She enjoys attending ‘after-school care’ three times a week. She does not need to attend it but she gets her homework done smoothly there and plays with her classmates. It costs only about $6 per student per year and that is only for insurance.  Natan’el still needs a bit of my help with written tests. He does not usually receive high scores but his teacher sometimes cites him as example because Natan’el sometimes receives more scores than some of the Japanese students in his class. He still has a lot of Japanese to learn to catch up with his peers but he understands Japanese more and more each day. Setsuli’s teacher treats her just like all the other Japanese students and Setsuli does well when she is challenged. Setsuli can converse very well in Japanese.This term will finish on Christmas Day. It is not a public holiday in Japan. Schools are holding Closing Ceremonies until noon on Christmas Day and will be closed until the 8th of January. People and shop-owners are excited about Christmas although they do not understand its true meaning.Nathan wants to study Japanese hard but his IT work interrupts very much. He has to deal with his client’s computers/servers during many nights. He has not been able to sleep much. He has passed Level 1 for this term but he would have done better if he was able to focus fully on his study. He is looking forward to Level 2 in January-March term. His school organises some cultural experience classes such as Japanese calligraphy, Tea ceremony, oligami and so on in the course. One day he attended a Ninjya Experience class! The class was not only for listening but also for experiencing it. Nathan was asked to sing at his school’s Christmas Service. He was also asked to deliver a three minute Christmas message in Japanese at their closing ceremony. He was asked to use his level of Japanese and received good feedback from his teachers and fellow students.
 

Why ‘Go Osaka’?

This newsletter has been named ‘Go Osaka!’ Why is that?

In Japanese, the short-form word for Australia sounds like our English word ‘go’. Japanese are as fond of a good pun as many Aussies so we decided to create a bilingual pun!

There is, however, a deeper meaning. Our ministry in Japan depends on building partnership between our Aussie supporters and the Osaka Christian Church. It is, therefore, an ‘Australia–Osaka’ partnership (which is the meaning of the Japanese writing in our masthead.)
 
Church Life


In October, the children’s ministry, Crayon, was postponed for a week (into the first week of November) because of a Typhoon. As planned, we ran a quiz using English, “Which is which?”— this time about Australian and North American animals. Eight children attended.

In November, our church held a BBQ picnic event and the event was extended to people who attended our church events. My mother and her two sisters and my cousin’s daughter joined. The fourteen year old girl who attends the sunday school quite regularly also came along. One of our church member’s husband who is not a Christian came with his family and was very keen on BBQ. Nineteen people attended.

The church also ran an event for older people. We have four aged care workers in the church. The minister used to work at an aged care in the past. He gave a message and a deacon gave a seminar on dementia. Two people attended. We are thinking of the second seminar on the similar topic. 

Please pray that the church will organise more and more of outreach events where non Christians will enjoy coming along.

Presbyterian Church of Japan held their General Assembly for two days in Tokyo. APWM asked Nathan to represent Presbyterian Church of Australia for greeting at the Assembly. All of us headed to Tokyo and we stayed with my youngest sister’s family in Chiba. She looked after our children and they looked after her children during the Assembly. We missed to catch up with them when they visited Osaka in August during the summer holidays because we were in Australia. Nathan gave the speech in Japanese and received a lot of very warm encouragement from a Korean minister, Japanese ministers and elders. With his little Japanese Nathan delivered his heart very well. He believed strongly that he who has already been sent to Japan should give the speech in the language.

In December our children’s outreach event theme was Christmas and fourteen children made a “Confectionary House” each. Some children neatly decorated and some others just put whatever they wanted to eat with their houses. Many different houses were made. They listened to the Christmas story of cerebrating Jesus’ birth. Please pray for these children that this Christmas they may understand the true meaning of Christmas.

Since Christmas Day is not a public holiday, Churches in Japan will hold their Christmas Service on Sunday the 24th. Therefore, our church is holding a Candlelight Service on the night before. My mother was so keen to attend the service that she contacted her two sisters to come together. 

Yours in Christ Jesus,

Tomoko Stewart, 
Osaka.
 
 
For your prayers
 
Thanksgiving
  • A fourteen year old girl who has been regularly attending Sunday School will continue to come to church.
  • six non Christians attended the BBQ picnic.
  • many children attended the Christmas event
  • Nathan has passed Level 1
  • my first year with our children and Nathan’s nine months were productive and safe by God’s grace
Petition
  • that we will have full support so that Nathan does not have to work as a business consultant to support us so that he can focus on his language study and can sleep well.
  • that we may build deep and effective gospel partnerships
  • that we will remain patient and trusting on his provision and timing
  • that we will not neglect daily prayer
  • that the Lord will forgive our sins and cause us to depend on him
  • the people of Japan will understand the true meaning of Christmas 
  • that children who attended the outreach ministry events will continue to come along
  • that my mother and my two aunties will be more open to the Gospel through attending the church’s candle service. 
  • the cold weather will not be so hard on us. (Christmas Day will be down to 3°.) 
 
PDF available for printing
 
Go Osaka! is available for download in printer-friendly portable document format from our website. If you would like to print copies for distribution please download and print the PDF.