GIC Stateside Retreat
The backwoods of rural Mississippi was a stark contrast to life in Osaka, but an appropriate place for Genesis' stateside team members to gather for a time of encouragement, planning, praying, and worshipping together. Sixteen adults and seven children gathered at "The Barn," near Madden, MS over Valentine's weekend. The group included two young families and three single men who are raising support to join the Genesis team in Osaka.
After losing our founding team leader, the focus of the weekend was to encourage our stateside team as they labor in an often difficult time of raising support. It may seem that losing the founding president of a college that is not yet off the ground would signal the end of such a challenging endeavor. But we are convinced that God has done too much, prepared too much, and called us in such clear and peculiar ways, that we can be confident that He is not yet finished with
Genesis International College!
Our team was greatly encouraged by our interactions with Bruce & Susan Young, who served many years as missionaries in Japan. We were inspired to persevere through conversations with Haruaki & Asami Odate, friends of mine from Chiba who
are currently studying at
Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS. And we were loved and supported by Bob & Karen Brunson, a PCA pastor and his wife who are serving as our team's "Pastoral Assistant Couple." Additionally, we were blessed by two men from
Highlands PCA who cooked all of our meals (food donated by the church), and volunteers from
Redeemer and
Trinity PCAs who took care of the children while parents participated in various sessions.
I was especially blessed to take the group to worship at both Trinity (my former church) and Redeemer (my current church). I gave a brief ministry update at both churches, and was even able to join the Redeemer choir and witness the installation of our new senior pastor!
Please lift up the Genesis team. The Rose family and Frank Harrell are both nearing 100% of their support and hope to be in Osaka in the next few months. Others have more work to do; pray that they will be encouraged as they see God providing for their needs.
Thank you to those of you who contributed to the cost of the retreat. We could not have offered this free of charge to our team members without your generosity. And thank you to those who prayed for this event. We were blessed!
English Seminar
Our second English seminar, now rebranded as "English Language Intensive," or "ELI," was a great success! Held during Spring Break, this three-day event drew ten students. Marcia Esaki (director of our English cafe ministry) and I taught six sessions on speaking, listening, reading, and writing. We were pleased to have a couple of students return from our July seminar, in addition to our new students.
Our goal for these seminars is to serve our community, to build friendships that will lead to sharing of the gospel, and to build the reputation of
Genesis International College for future recruitment of students. We were very happy with the results, as the students seemed very happy, having been challenged in their English skills and supported by our staff.
Each night, we invited our students to join us for dinner, including one night at a Mexican restaurant and another at an authentic New Orleans cafe. These were great times of relationship building.
Our next seminar is scheduled for August 29-31.
No comments:
Post a Comment