People affected by the Hurricane Sandy
disaster have been in our hearts and prayers. Our non-Christian Japanese friends gave us cash to send for U.S. churches to help in the relief effort,
saying “American churches gave so much to us after the earthquake. Now it’s our
turn to give back to them!”
Here is an excerpt from a blog entry written last month by Gary Watanabe who visited Grace City Church during a worship service where funds were being raised for the relief effort. You can read the original article here.
 |
Raising money at Grace City Church
for Hurricane Sandy victims |
"I just got back from a trip to Asia this Monday, and my last stop was in Tokyo, where I witnessed something pretty amazing.
First
of all, I attended worship at one of our partner church plant projects,
Grace City Church Tokyo, on Sunday. Tokyo is one of the most expensive
and secular cities in the world. The average time I'm told for
establishing a self-supporting, self-sustaining, self-governing church
in Japan is about 7 yrs, and the average church size in all of Japan is
about 30.
The church was packed to standing room only with over
80 people. Currently the church plant is in its third year and still
growing. Now that the church has reached its limits in space it will
have to find a bigger venue in order to continue growing, which means
greater financial costs. The cost for a pastor and his family to live in
central Tokyo and rent a venue for worship gatherings is one of the
reasons so few churches are being planted in the heart of one of the
world's largest cities. However, it's amazing to see the church's faith
and growth in spite of the enormous financial challenges and other
challenges that they have to confront in such a city.
But all of
this wasn't the most amazing thing for me. It was what I witnessed in
the worship service. In the middle of worship, the pastor, Rev. Makoto
Fukuda, announced that the worshipers would have the opportunity to
contribute to the relief efforts of Hurricane Sandy during the offering.
In the midst of their own financial needs, they still felt it was
important to come to our aid in New York City just as we did when they
suffered the 3/11 triple disasters of earthquake, tsunami, and
radiation.
That disaster happened when the church was just about
one year old, and proved to be pivotal for the ministry. Seima Aoyagi,
who had just been with us in New York as part of our International
Intensive training in 2010, and Roger Lowther, an American missionary
and worship director of the church plant, immediately began to pull relief together and make trips up north
to the devastated areas. In the process they built relationships with
many neighbors in Tokyo and up north, providing many opportunities for
ministry.
Generosity
is a manifestation and fruit of the transforming power of the Gospel
and I had the privilege of witnessing that.
We want you
to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the
churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their
abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth
of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I
can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord.... For you
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet
for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become
rich. —2 Corinthians 8:1-3, 9"
