Saturday, December 27, 2008

Christmas in Lima






















Christmas in Lima:

There were several wonderful moments: Two Christmas Eve Services (one in English and one in Spanish).

Two of the most happy moments were: 1) A baptism service at our church. We had three people baptized: Lyra, Miriam, and Kevin. 2) Gray surprised us with a Christmas visit to Lima.
Please pray for our church we are looking for a new place to worship!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Tim

Luke's Christmas Play below.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Merry Christmas



Dear Family and Friends,

Please pray for Juan Carlos. He is a new believer and he has some difficult family issues. Tim has a new Nikkei ESL student starting next Wednesday.

(ICSL Christmas Play: Luke middle Shepard)


The end of the year is a great time to reflect on what God is doing in our lives. I realized today that we have been given an unusual opportunity to study the culture of Venezuelans, Peruvians, Costa Ricans, the Wayuu, the Japanese, and the Nikkei. The one thing all these cultures have in common is that God loves each of them. Christmas is a wonderful time of year to think about God's love for us. Today, Joy shared the story with a Japanese lady that told her that this is the first time she had have ever heard the Christmas story.
Please pray for all the people who have not heard and for those that are just now hearing this wonderful news.

It is difficult to be away from home, family, and friends during the holidays. Please know that our thoughts and prayers and hopes for wonderful blessings for the new year are with you.

Have a Merry Christmas!

We truly need and appreciate your prayers along with about 5,000 other IMB missionaries around the world. We would also like to take a moment to say thank you for your support of our IMB missionaries. We could not be here without your financial and prayer support.
THANK YOU and God Bless!!

Tim, Joy, Gray, Caleb, Jacob, Luke (in Lima and Athens)
(ICSL High School Choir: Jacob front left)

Monday, November 24, 2008

November 08, Thanksgiving at the Weavers




Please pray for our family and ministry in Lima.

It seems strange to head into the holidays and have summer time weather. Last year it was still pretty chilly at this time so it seemed somewhat like fall in Georgia. This year we are experiencing spring like weather as we head into our summer months of Dec - Mar.

A young man named Juan Carlo accepted Christ at the resaurant this past week. He was in church on Sunday. Please pray for him.

Jacob and Caleb participated in a school mission project where they did physical work and presented the Gospel to the people in the town.

All of our classes are continuing.

This coming Sunday we are having all of the Japanese families that attend Joys ESL bible class to our house for Thanksgiving Dinner.

The Mitchells
Tim, Joy, Caleb, Jacob, Luke in Lima
Gray in Athens

Monday, October 27, 2008

Oct 27, 2008







Kam Mein (our church meets in this restaurant)
The view above is from our 4th story apartment






Things to pray for:

1) The kids in school. Pray that they do well in school.
2) We are helping start a church and disciple a new group of beleivers. Please pray for Jesus Loo. We take turns preaching on Sundays. There are several bible training classes each week. The people are growing spirituallly. Please pray that we make wise decisions and the people will continue to grow and share their new faith.

3) The Nikkie ESL on Saturdays: We seem to always have about 6-15 students in 3 different classes. We are also being asked to participate in social functions like barbeques. Please pray that we will have strong relationships with our new Nikkei friends.

4) We always need prayers that we understand the culture and our Spanish continues to improve.

Thanks for your prayers.

The Mitchells

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Brazil Trip

Late September Tim had the opportunity to visit a Nikkei mission meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The topic was how to reach the Nikkei people. The interesting thing is that this was a meeting of different denominations of Nikkei believers. Hearing their stories of salvation has been helpful in our research to understand their culture. Tim preached in a cross cultural setting using a Portuguese interpreter.

Please pray for the Nikkei people.

We have been searching for a christian contact for the Nishimura family to meet with in Japan. We found him through another Japanese believer living in the U.S. We just received an e-mail from him that he was planning to have dinner with them this weekend. It is interesting to see God work across international boundries.

Please pray for this family.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Machu Pichu


Opportunities


Tim will be in Sao Paulo, Brazil for a few days attending a meeting of Nikkei christians about how to reach the Nikkei people living in South America and Japan. Please pray that this will be a insightful meeting about the Nikkei culture and that there will be a lot of information about how to reach Nikkei people. (Nikkei: people of Japanese ancestry living outside of Japan.)

We are aware of a couple of people looking for student exchange programs in the United States.
1) Marcello is a teenage boy that goes to Colegio America high school. He would like to attend school in the U.S. his 11th grade year next year (Mar - Dec 09) to improve his english. He speaks good English now but it would help him to be in an all english environment.

2) Joyce is soon to finish her 2nd of five years of her college business degree program. She would like to find a situation to work over her summer break (mid Dec - March 30). Her business degree program requires students to work out of the country for one of her summer breaks. She could do this either this summer or next. (The summer in Peru is the American winter.)

Please pray for continued cultural understanding. It strikes me more everyday that we really have to understand culture to be able to communicate at a deep personal human level to share the news of God's love. Currently I am preaching every other week in a new church. It is very humbling to try to prepare to preach anytime I think. But it is a more difficult process at this point in my language acquisition to be prepared to share the Gospel in the Spanish language in a Peruvian culture. Please pray that I will be able to prepare sufficiently so that I can properly be used of God to share the truth of His love and desire that all people would come to know Him personally in my second language of (Peruvian) Spanish.

We truly need and appreciate all of your prayers for our family and the Nikkei.

God's Blessing and Peace,
Tim and Joy Mitchell
Caleb, Jacob & Luke
Lima, Peru

Gray
Athens, GA

Monday, September 15, 2008

Nikkei ESL begins, YEA!


The ESL classes have expanded from Japanese and Peruvian students to three classes of Nikkei students. In early August, Guiilermo called and said we have a meeting with a Professional Nikkei business association. We met with them and started classes the next week. Joy teaches one beginning class and Tim teaches two advanced classes. These classes include college students and young professionals. We are excited about building these relationships and sharing the stories from the Bible in our classes.

Tim has been meeting with Jesus Loo for prayer, cultural studying and language learning. Jesus had 5 employees that within a short period of time all accepted Christ. There were two other believers at his restuarant so Jesus felt lead to start a church at his restaurant. Tim is helping with the teaching and preaches every other Sunday.

Caleb, Jacob and Luke are adjusting well. This is their second school year in Lima. It is nice to start a year and know a lot of the people. It is a lot warmer this winter. Gray has started college this fall at the University of Georgia.

Please pray that our language and cultural learning will continue!!!!! Please pray for our new Nikkei students, 13 people. Please pray for the Chifa church in Mira Flores. Please pray for our health and spiritual growth.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

April 30, 2008

Pray:

  • Please pray for our health.
  • Please pray for the needs of our family.
  • Please pray for the Nikkeis(Peruvian Japanese).
  • Please pray for a new believer as he shares with his family.

We know we need your prayers and we appreciate your prayers. Please pray for various family members in the states that are having health problems.

Please pray for us as we prepare for Gray to return to the states for college.

Thank you so much,
Tim

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

APRIL 1, 08 Meeting and Finding Japanese

Since living in Lima we have met many people. We have language partners that are helping us with the language and the culture.

We have visited many different churches and discussed many different ways to reach the Japanese. Some of the problems with this is that the Japanese do not live in one specific section of the city. They are scattered. There is not a general business district where they work.

One thing we have recently discovered is that there is a Nikkie student group for all the Japanese college students regardless of where they go to college in Lima. There are approximately 20 college campuses in Lima. No one lives on campus. This is one of the best options we have now as a central place or way to minister to Japanese in Lima.

Every university has a language requirement to graduate. The level of the language requirement varies from college to college. We may have the opportunity to give ESL classes or some other type of help to college students to build a relationship and then the chance to share the Gospel. Either through storying or just sharing our testimony.

Almost half of the working population of Nikkei's (Japanese born in Peru) now lives in Japan so they can make more money.

Pray that as me meet people that they will be responsive to the Gospel. Pray that we find the best way to meet the Japanese people and serve there needs.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Prayer Update

Please Pray for the Japanese...

*In Japan less than 1% of the population is Christian. (that includes all denominations)

*There are approximately 150,000 Japanese people living in Lima, Peru.

*The vast majority are Peruvian Japanese people that were born in Lima and speak Spanish as their fist language.

*There is also a transient Japanese business community that has families living in Lima for 3-10 years. Their 1st (heart) language is Japanese and they speak various levels of Spanish.

*Pray that we are able to communicate with the appropriate language and culture.
*Pray that the Holy Spirit will be preparing the hearts of the Japanese people to hear the gospel.