Graduation June 2012

Since our last post:  The young lady living with us had graduated from high school and moved back to Japan.  We had several good conversations with her about God and his love, but she has not made a decision to be a disciple.  Please pray for K and her family.  Her parents were here for the graduation.

Also, Jacob graduated from ICSL and is now back in the states preparing to start college and adapting to the heat.  We have just entered winter here in Lima, Peru.

Tim has also had the chance to return to Buenos Aires and have some key meetings with three Nikkei leaders there about ministry possibilities.  We had two days of meetings.  The words that best describe them were by Jerry Haas and he said "The meeting was full of good content".  We had two key topics to discuss the BTCP training materials and the options of how we could share the Gospel with the NIkkei in Buenos Aires.  We are looking at trying to create short term mission trips to reach the elderly Japanese speakers in Buenos Aires.  Obviously in this visits there would be people in the homes that speak Spanish as their heart language, but many of the immigrants in the 1950's went right to work and never learned to speak Spanish well.  Thus these teams would consists of persons that felt called to come and share the Gospel to people in Buenos Aires with some special events such as Asian events that would draw people from all over Asia including Japanese descendents.  The team could also consists of people that speak Japanese and would be willing to go door to door to Nikkei homes and share the Gospel with friends and family members of the three churches of Nikkei in BA, Argentina.

Please pray for these people.  Pray for the people that speak Japanese as a first language and the people that  speak Spanish as a first language.  Buenos Aires is a large metropolitan city of almost 15 million people.  It has a very European worldview.  There are over 30,000 Japanese descendents in Argentina and we are aware of about 300 believers.

Please pray for these people.

In Lima as usual we have our ESL ministries:  Also, we have added two key contacts that God has brought into our lives.  One of these students is in an intensive language program this summer so she can attend the ICSL school.  She is trying to increase her English level by several grade levels.  Please pray for K as we are involved in this effort.  We met K and her mother the day after our other K left Peru.  As we were missing our first K and were sad to see her leave God brought us another young person to minister to.

Please pray for Jacob in his transition to the U.S. and home.

Please pray for Luke as he is now the only one of his four brothers in Lima.  Please pray for our family as we adjust to the changes and challenges of life...

God's Blessings and Peace.  Tim

Buenos Aires, Argentina

April 8- 17th I was in Argentina to research the Nikkei population and the churches in Buesnos Aires. There are 30,000 Nikkei living in Buenos Aires a city of 13 million people. The Nikkei in Buenos Aires are a mixture of Buddhist, Catholic, Athiest, and Evangelical Christians. In the 1930's a Japanese christian business man and his family ministered to the early migrants and was able to start a church. When he returned to Japan a Japanese pastor was sent to pastor the church. One interesting thing is that because this church was started early in the migration process and by a Japanese person almost all the Nikkei I met were aware of the existence of the church. There are four churches and two pastors in the Nikkei community. One of the pastors is currently pastoring two congregations and their is one small church that currently does not have a pastor. The majority of Nikkei that accepted Christ in Buenos Aires did so at a moment of crisis in their life. They had had a friend or family member share the Gospel but it wasn't until they had a serious crisis did they make their decision. Both pastors are very interested in outreach to the Nikkei community in Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. They have different services based on language. The original immigrants still worship in Japanese and the third generation is worshiping in Spanish. Please pray that there will be a movement of Nikkei people working together to evangelize other Nikkei. I am optimistic that this will take place in the not to distant future.

Feb in Pisaq ( The Sacred Valley of the Inca)

We just returned Sunday night from a trip in the Andes Mountains. This has been a regular event on the calender for the past four years. We go as part of a team of teachers and evangelist to help disciple and train the churches and church leaders in various doctrinal areas and we are always focused on evangelism events and evangelism training.

We just had another good week. Many people made a decision for Christ. Many people rededicated their lives. Many people came to discipleship classes and hopefully were encouraged and prepared in their christian walk. This is a beautiful part of God's World. (very high and cold and rainy this time of year)

Encouraging Sports Baseball Clinic Jan 2012

We just had our second baseball clinic with the Encouraging Sports missions team. God Blessed and allowed all the team members to come back this year and we added an additional coach. The week flew by but we had a great time.

Jacob and Luke along with a young man (D) who accepted Christ as the result of the clinic last year worked as translators. The Baseball Federation meeting was very gratifying. The Baseball Federation leaders were all very pleased and happy that the team came back a second time. This has really opened the doors to the baseball families in Lima.

The team does a great job with the clinic. At the end of each clinic a coach shares his testimony and another coach shares a story from the Bible. On the day of the last clinic this year we added an opportunity for the players and coaches to respond. There were about 300 kids from the ages of 8 - adult and about 25 Peruvian coaches that participated in the clinic. There were five groups and thus five different invitations. In total we had 42 decisions for Christ this year.

One simple key that allowed us to easily begin sharing the plan of salvation were the wrist bands that say: Encouraging Sports Juan 3:16. Every child recieved a band and heard the Gospel. This was truly a great week: of sharing baseball, our faith and fellowship.

This all started with a conversation while we were on a stateside church visit on a saltwater fishing trip in Tampa. A pastor, simply asked do you have a need for a baseball clinic in Lima? I had no idea and started sending emails to the three Nikkei friends that might know if there was baseball. God truly works in mysterious ways. This is truly a great highlight of our year. The coaches really do a great job putting ona a great baseball camp that is overflowing in love for the kids. The parents, coaches and kids are able to see God's love lived out.

thanks guys
plus a special thanks to the moms, wives, grandkids, kids etc that have to share their family with us for a week)

Watch the recap video here! Copy and paste this link into your address bar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92QAgpBydZ4

Japan Trip Jan 2011

We were able to see a great deal of Tokyo and Karuizawa. We attended a missions meeting that had many issues on the agenda. We had a very good meeting, strategy sessions, worship and prayer times, etc. We also got to touch base with Christian friends, Japanese friends and Nikkei friends. God opened doors for us to meet and share with many different people. We also did a few vacation days.

Please enjoy the pictures.

Christmas in Georgia

Please note a few pictures while we were in the states. It is always good to be with family and friends.

I personally always enjoy the first worship service in English. Thanks for your prayers.

Computer problems, Trip to Japan

There has not been a post for a while becuase my lap top died. It has now been resurrected.

We have three key events in the past five weeks. We were in the U.S over Christmas and then in Japan for various meetings. Then we had our second baseball clinic with the group " Encouraging Sports". The last five weeks have been very busy and very good weeks.

God's Blessings and Peace, The Mitchell's