Update on New Brother in Christ

Hey all, I just wanted to give an update on our new brother in Christ, Kazuk. If you haven't read yet, or need to be refreshed, go here to read about Kazuki becoming a Christian. I'm going to list these updates in praises to God, and also prayer requests.

Praises:

• God has answered our prayers, and He is filling Kazuki with a thirst and hunger for Him. Kazuki is eating up all the resources we keep giving to him. And what's cool, is at one point Charlie asked Kazuki if he could understand some articles we gave him. Kazuki's response was something like "If I didn't have Jesus in my heart, I wouldn't be able to understand these things. But because of Jesus, I can understand them." (Of course his theology is a little off...Jesus is in Heaven at the right of God. It's the Holy Spirit who is within him, allowing him to understand these things. But hey, he's only be a Christian for 5 days)
• God has allowed us to make some great connections. There is a program at USC with a ministry aimed at internationals. They have connections with Japanese Christians in the Columbia area that we want to connect up with Kazuki. My uncle is a former missionary to South America (through MTW), and is now in Atlanta and doing something with MTW and their ministry to hispanics in North America. So I emailed him asking him if he knew anybody, or had Japanese resourceses, and he passed my email on to some missionaries in Japan. They have provided us with some websites where we can buy books that have been translated to Japanese. And, they recommended a family at Lexington Pres Church who served as missionaries in Japan a while back. (And what's neat is that Vanessa grew up at that church, so she knows that family!)
• Well, God performed that miracle concerning the Bible! But as He does a lot, He reminds us He heard our prayer, and will even partially answer it, but He then reminds us He has another plan. The Bible was supposed to arrive on Friday. But on Wednesday there was a notice in the mail that they tried to deliver it, but because no one was home, they didn't drop it off. So on Thursday Vanessa went and got it from the post office. We then wrote out verses for him to look up, and wrote some pointers to help him with the Bible (i.e., that the Bible is made up of 66 books, each book contains chapters. Each chapter contains verses, etc).  But God's plan was definitely better than mine, because Thursday night I had the opportunity to play music with my friend at Campus Crusade at USC. So Vanessa, Charlie and Kazuki came that evening. Kazuki was so excited when he arrived and Vanessa gave him his new Bible.

Ok, so those are some of the praises. Now for the prayer requests:

Sadly, Kazuki found out on Thursday that he has been fired from his job. If you remember from our last post talking about how Kazuki became a Christian, I mentioned that Kazuki said he "got very depressed and physically and mentally shut himself off from the world." Well, one way he physically shut himself off was that he pretty much stopped working at his job, and stopped communicating with his boss. When he would go in to work, it would be late at night when no one else was there. So, his boss (obviously upset about Kazuki not being at work for the last month or so) decided to fire him. Furthermore, his boss has been speaking with Kazuki's parents, and they've decided it would be best for Kazuki to return to Japan. So this coming Thursday, Kazuki's father will be arriving here and taking Kazuki back to Japan. So here are some ways we can be praying:

• First, Kazuki really wants to remain in America. He would like to return to Japan for a brief time (to see family and friends), but he really wants to come back. Pray that God would make it clear to us if it would bring him glory for Kazuki to return to Japan for good, or to come back here at some point. Also pray that God will give us all (but especially Kazuki) that peace that passes understanding if Kazuki is to remain in Japan.
• Now that Kazuki is a Christian, we have explained to him that God commands us to work hard, and do the best we can. So this past week Kazuki has been trying to do that. He's been going in to work, and been trying to get everything caught up. So, we don't know if Kazuki should speak with his boss and ask him to give him another opportunity to prove to his boss he's being transformed. Pray for wisdom as to whether or not Kazuki should do that. And if so, pray that God would soften his boss' heart, and be willing to give him another shot.
• Please pray that Kazuki will find a church and some more mature Christians in Japan who can take him under their wings, and help disciple him.
• Please pray that Kazuki will be spending lots of time in the Bible, and that he will be memorizing as much as he can. Satan is going to be attacking him when he returns to Japan, and Kazuki needs those verses stored in his heart so that he can fight back.

That's all I can think of for now. Thank you all for your prayers! Please continue praying for this new brother. So y'all can put a face with this new brother, check out the picture below. It is of Kazuki, myself and Charlie when we all went to the SC State Fair back in October. The link below that picture will direct you to more pictures from that time. peace like a river....

SC State Fair '08