Last night we baptized our friends from Japan. It was incredible & we are overjoyed at what God is doing through our church. One of the groups of people we wanted to reach out to in SC was the International Students & the fruit of that has been outstanding. It's been such a blessing to meet our new friends & it is our hope that they take the seed of the Gospel back to their countries & "make disciples." Sadly, our Japanese friends are leaving, but we're in contact with other churches in Japan that they can grow with.

Mari went to church with her parents, but never believed. She was afraid God would take away her dreams & we let her wrestle with that reality. She is now a follower of Jesus.



Teru didn't know anything about Jesus, but as he spent time with us he met Him through our church & now desires to be like Jesus whom he respects very much. He mentioned more than once how he was inspired by Jesus' ability to love those who hated him.



We have LifeGroup leadership meeting during the 4th week of every month & last month Jeff, Hae-Jung, & I went out to dinner. Afterwards Hae-Jung (whom we baptized last spring) mentioned he was taking Yuseke out to coffee to share his testimony with him & it had a lasting effect on Yuseke. This is an awesome picture of God creating community in people who would otherwise be separated (Yuseke: Japan--Hae-Jung: Korea).

Yuseke really experienced God at our Sunday Service. I was blown away when I saw him hold out his hands in worship & then before I started preaching I asked if anyone sensed God telling them anything. He shared he felt God's presence. Hae-Jung baptized Yuseke.


The Baptismal!

Preacher doin' his thing in style. Actually, I'm showing people how I had to carry Linda back to the couch after she ate too much ice cream.

This is Yuseke's friend Alona. At dinner she started asking Janine some questions & Janine learned that she had never heard of Jesus! Unreached people groups in SC?! Wow. Oddly she had attended some local church, but had never heard the gospel/Jesus? We don't know how it all works, but Janine gave her a Bible, showed her how to read it (Good job Janine! You're fast!), & then before the night was over she prayed for her, while Alona's hands were on her lap face up & open. Janine is going to meet with her to see if she wants to start following Jesus. Awesome.

Today Laben & I went surfing with a Mormon guy who's asking a lot of questions & would join us at our service this week except he has to work; he says he's gonna' show up the week after. It's awesome to see what God is doing.