First Sunday of Calvary Chapel Iruma

Everyone is wondering what happened to the Bolingers and Calvary Chapel Iruma. I am sorry for not responding sooner.

It was pouring rain all morning before the service began the rain let up but still sprinkled. The Ai no kyokai family joined us in supporting our first day preaching. They are of a very old traditional service with Sambika (Hymns) These hymns are very special yet many are in an old Japanese that many of the words are a lost vocabulary and they don't really know exactly what they sing. So when I belted out the Worship for our service it was a surprise for them. Yet they tolerated it. The timeless praise songs touch the heart in all languages. I have been asked to teach this coming Sunday morning for the Ai no Kyokai church. They also asked me to lead worship for them. Hmm, is God doing something here? This is very shocking to any of you who know my music talents and capabilities. To sing in Japanese is a very big challenge to get the words pronounced in the correct order on the right note has been the suffering of all gaijin in Japan. So the Holy Spirit did a great job ministering through Mihoko and I. She translated everything. It is all a blurr now. I spoke on Luke 1 with Zacharaias and Elizabeth being used by God in their elderly years. "With God nothing is impossible". We had a total of 13 persons 5 were my family.

We had a great time of fellowship afterwards and the guests who came and visited were given a royal tour of the place. Any of you want to come and visit anytime it'd be our pleasure to show you around.

We are going to do an outreach this Friday night (Normally our Bible Study) no one has come for a few weeks so we will go to the train station and hand out some tracks and fliers.

Last Saturday we had a work day at the church to knocked out several piles of trash and debre and we were blessed with family coming from all over Japan. We had one family drive all the way from Yokohama and they stayed until dark. We had to pull them away from the clean up. We were also privileged to have my friend Pastor Jonathan Wilson from Grace Christian Fellowship and a team from his church came out and bless with clean up. They literally scorched the place. They had three piles of trash burning. Jonathan now has smooth arms and I believe a few less eye brow hair. Yet in all the melee there was still more to do. The Ai no Kyokai folks were so happy and blessed. It was a tremendous burden lifted for them as their neighbors, the gas co, the electric co, and others complained so much about the mess of weeds and over grown trees.

I gave the Ai folks a shock yesterday as I cut down another tree and the mess was piled back up. But today we cleared that too. So we also made two more truck runs and have widdled down the trash to maybe two or three more truck loads. We still haven't touched the inside of the building. This is just outside. There are 7 buildings on the property with 35 years of clutter from different churches that have not been kept up but have gone to waste. In Japanese all the Ai folks keep saying is "Motai nai." (waste) That means it's too bad this should not have happened. That is my paraphrase. We still had two small piles of trash burning today. I have yet to even tackle the back of the place. There is still a jungle back there. If anyone wants to come and get real dirty and see some of the wildest bugs on earth come on out. The fertile soil has lots of critters. I have been so blessed by God's infininte imagination to create some of the most ugly and heinous looking creatures yet there is a beauty in those things. There are these iridescent blue lizards that rock. They are so cool. I found a tape worm that was two feet in length. One of the Ai folks swears to not want to eat linguine anymore after seeing that. We also have a bull frog the size of a Chihuahua. I have seen 4 or 5 different kinds of Preying mantis they are weird things. The creepiest for me is the Cicada. I just freak out at the noise those things make.

I have been announcing on the radio our church services and we have been getting the word out personally. I have been sticking labels on about two hundred tracts and we need to do thousands more. I also made a church sign out of poster board and electrical tape. Sunday it rained so hard it was a sticky mess when we went home. This week I am painting some wood signs but alas I am needing to make some banners and eventually a real sign as the Lord leads.

My kids were invited by Grace Christian Fellowship to come to their VBS this week. It was awesome! We found they are a 20 minute car ride from us so it gave the kids a great opportunity to learn about Moses and the Exodus story. They are singing and dancing everywhere now.

My ESL class was down to three kids today as all are on summer vacation. We had fun playing some hangman today.

The Radio program is going great the radio station staff are checking out the songs I am playing. I was playing the Okinawan sensation Hakugaijin's new CD "Ai Land" and it is a rap/rock/worship compilation and it is really catchy music. The DJ's and the engineers are laughing at my funny Japanese and the music they are enjoying. One intern came up asking for information on some worship music. So God is using this very different radio show.

Pray for us to continue to look to Jesus. Pray we will seek to always be praying giving thanksgiving for all things the Lord brings our way. Pray we will have that unction from the Holy Spirit to be faithful and love with God's agape love. We are wanting to plan so many things. I was wanting and praying for a VBS here but I am looking at the middle of August and we are not there. So pray we can do maybe just a one or two day VBS and share the gospel with our neighbors and friends. Pray for a possible Fall Church Matsuri (festival) as the Ai no Kyokai folks are wanting to have a re-introduction to the neighborhood event. We are seeing a fine line we are walking between trying to remain planting a Calvary Chapel that is distinct from their Church and also they desire for us to minister with them. Pray we can just lease the facility and just be CCI for the whole thing. Pray that we will not get so consumed with the care of this facility that we loose touch with the mission of seeking lost souls and introducing them to Jesus. Pray for laborers, we need worship leaders and Children's ministry workers and mostly we need people. Pray for a plentiful harvest.

Pray for Kato san she has had four surgeries and is in pain. She is ornery enough to keep coming to church though. Pray for Ojii chan (Komine's dad) he is screening for lymphatic cancer. Pray for Noda Sensei who is in Hammamatsu performing music outreach. Pray for Jan Jones who had an attack of kidney stones she has a wild story about her ambulance ride to downtown Tokyo for care. She is still dealing with pain and discomfort. Pray for her to maintain her schedule. I am ashamed and feel as if I don't do much when you find a go-getter like Jan. She is everywhere and knows everyone. Pray for the Bolingers to have reprieve from numerous mosquito bites. Nathan is the champ with about 35 so he says. I am too stinky because I am not bit hardly at all. YES they do spray with repellent. These vampires are so hungry they endure the repellent and attack. Pray for us to get our Home Schooling Curriculum ordered and shipped here on time as school is only three weeks away. Yikes.

God bless you all and thank you to those who are praying for us. It is so wonderful to know there are folks lifting us up to the Lord to strengthen us and minister through us to the lost in Iruma. I also want to thank the physical supporters who are sacrificing during these difficult days. We don't know who helps us but we are being blessed with our basic needs being met.

Love in Christ,

Dan Mihoko and the kids.