Fellowship Baptist Church, Chiba New Town

Today we traveled one hour by bus to visit Fellowship Baptist Church in Chiba New Town. That's the church where David and Melody Yoshida minister. The Yoshidas have visited Hamilton Hills twice in recent months. Back in June, David shared a testimony about their work at Chiba New Town and their financial needs associated with their desire to improve their church property in preparation for erecting a modular building. We responded to the need with a gift of $5k from HHBC missionary project funds.

To the left is a photo of the group in attendance today. Melody Yoshida is standing behind me to the right as you look at the picture. David was not there today; he is still in the States seeking to raise more support. Obviously the group is not very large, but they are very friendly and there are certainly some very committed Christians among them. The man all the way in the back to the left as you look did the translating for my sermon. His name is Keiichi Ueda. Keiichi became a Christian at age 21; he is 44 presently. He and his family spent several years in Connecticut, so his knows English well and did a good job with the translation. Keiichi's two sons, age 12 and 16, also pictured toward the back, were the only two students in Sunday School. I wish you could have seen their faces when I told them how many students are in our SS and youth meetings each week. They can only pray for that kind of Christian fellowship.

We spent the balance of the day visiting with Melody and talking over future plans for the English as a Foreign Language evangelism outreach. Melody gave some outstanding input. I'll write more about this tomorrow. Presently, I am little tired, so I will sign off soon. However, before going, I want to share this little testimony to the Lord's care for us. We were to phone Melody once we arrived at the bus station this morning. Unfortunately I left her number at the hotel. I found a phone book and asked a clerk at a nearby AM/PM convenience store if she would look up the name Yoshida for me. (I could not read the script in the phone book; so, once again, I needed help). The clerk couldn't figure out which phone book to use, so she asked the other clerk. The other clerk looked me and asked, "Melody Yoshida?" Surprisingly enough, she knew Melody and even had her home phone number in her cell phone. Consequently, I made the call and Melody came right away to pick us up.