Prayer for Places to Park & Praise & Percolate

So God's cloud is moving for not just us here at Calvary Okinawa but a few others as well...
Please pray for the Silva's and CC Iwakuni as they are looking for a new place to worship since God is packing the house at their current location.
Above is a photo of the place Mike looked at last week. It's a packing house since God is packing the house... get it? ha ha ha...
Please pray for the Pallman's and CC Ginowan. They are looking for a place to open another coffee shop for outreach and bible study. They are praying for this place in Ishikawa.
And lastly, continue to pray for us here at CC Oki. This is a picture of our new sanctuary. Just kidding. This is CC Fort Lauderdale. I thought since they are building a new place, they could send us theirs. We appreciate your prayers as we continue to seek the Lord and for Him to "show us the place where the Lord our God chooses to make His name abide".

Cultural Food Exchange- Tortillas

Out of one ministry birthed another. During the Japanese VBS Outreach, Noemi made the volunteers a mexican style breakfast with home-made tortillas. They were out of this world.
So, we asked her if she wouldn't mind taking an afternoon and showing a few gals how this is done... well, word got around and well, a whole bunch of us came out for a great time of fellowship and literally, the breaking of bread! Next month we're learning how to make Indian Curry- come join us the 2nd Sunday of each month.
Noemi is schooling Ashley and Megumi on the proper rolling technique.
Everyone got a chance to make their own tortilla and finish the process of cooking them up.
The students were attentive as instruction went forth.
Going over the top, the Longoria's also made beans, rice, shredded beef and some fire salsa. It was awesome just hanging out, sharing our lives and meals together.
Pay attention ladies, this is how it's done by the Tortilla master.

The Velarde's become 6

Welcome to the world, Charis Priscilla Velarde! Congratulations to Damian and Sandra for God's blessing of their newest addition.
Here's the familia! What a blessing. Please continue to pray for the Velarde's. We are still praying that God will return them back to Italy as soon as He sets the visa's in order. We love you Velarde's!! For more pics, please check out their blog @ http://supernaturalwarriors.blogspot.com/

Big Ben turns Big One

I just had to throw these in... Ben turned 1 on Sept. 6th. It is amazing how fast time flies.
He is just as big as ever and adorable as ever (well in my opinion).
He's so excited for the cake. Just like his dad.
Now he's focused. Double fisted for more efficiency.
Oh yeah! That was good cake. Happy Birthday Ben Ben.

Mark Oshman shares with the men

For our monthly men's breakfast, we stayed the church this time and invited Mark Oshman to come and share with the guys. We were blessed as he challenged us from Hebrews to live a life that makes a difference. Mark runs a ministry to the military called "the Harbor". We are blessed to join with them in various outreach and ministry events.
Yup, Glenn's guitar playing continues to improve and God has given him a heart to minister to the men of Calvary. It is always so uplifting and encouraging to get with these guys who love the Lord and come to hear the teaching of His Word.
We will be joining the Harbor again this year in their Men's Retreat. Please pray for the 60 men that will be going and for Mark and all the arrangements. We're expecting God to do great things.

Kids Summer Series

During the summer, we take a break from our mid-week kids' ministry CKC and in its place we do a summer long VBS. This year we did the "Incredible Race" where kids learned to run the race for Jesus.
On this special night closing night, the kids were able to celebrate by trying to break a huge pinata full of candy. We were so blessed as one of the families in the church took all day and made this at home! That's incredible in itself!
The Jr. High students got involved to help the kids build their own race cars. The kids built, decorated, named and got to race their cars.
Here's the pit crews waiting for their cars to pull into position.
The older kids are confident that their buggy is ready to race.
We just had a blast this summer and thank all those who gave of their time and efforts to make this year's Summer Series a huge success. The kids were blessed beyond belief! Thanks!

Steve G. "the Preacher Man"

Our good brother, Steve is deployed right now and we miss him dearly but God is using him in tremendous ways out in the desert. Steve was asked by the Chaplain to teach the Sunday services.
They built a brand new sanctuary and God has opened the door for Steve to share the scriptures to a special group of folks.
Steve is all "Bob Coy-style". He walks around and doesn't stay at the pulpit. :)
Please pray for Steve and the many others that God has out there. God has a bigger plan than we can imagine! We miss you bro!

Sweet Yellow Ninja

There was this picture that grabbed my attention on the front cover of a local magazine. The article was about the history of a town of ninja in mainland Japan called Ueno. You can go there and still experience some of the old culture - kinda like an old cowboy town but with ninjas. They were famous for hiding in the shadows. (it'd be hard for this kid in banana yellow).

As Christians, God doesn't want us hiding in the shadows. He has called us out from darkness into His marvelous light that we might proclaim His praises.

Anyways, I just really dug the picture. If you click on it, check out the kid's eyes.

Japanese Outreach VBS

The church did a VBS for our Okinawan kids and invited the neighborhood out too.
The crew did a great job in decorating. We were able to use the same theme as our earlier VBS and be a blessing to the kids.
They were divided into different age groups and we rotated them through the various stations.
Here the kids were getting instructions for the game time.
Rika is showing the example of the craft for today. It was fun fish made from a blank cd. The kids learned about Jesus calling Peter to become fishers of men.
Of course, we had the ever popular snack time.
These boys came over from the "danchi" (Okinawan Government subsidized apartments). God has been good to us. For the past few years, we have done several outreaches to the community there. It is always a praise. We are blessed to share the good news of Jesus Christ to the kids.

The Beautiful Morales Family

It was a true blessing of God for us to pray along side the Morales Family (Ricardo, Melissa, Jay and Elly) as they dedicated their children to the Lord. The Morales Family came to know Christ in Hawaii and plugged into Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor. We have been so blessed by their fellowship. Please pray for Ricardo- he is Marine and will be deploying soon to Iraq for several months.

The Brickl's Baby! Congratulations!

Meet Charlie Chance Brickl!
Dan & Kelly were blessed by the Lord in adopting their new baby!
We are so happy for you guys! We miss you tons and can't wait to meet Charlie in person!
Love you guys- God bless!

Back in the Day

Our first trip as a group was in October 2000. The team was made up of a group from Livingwater and CC Whittier. Here Richard is impressed with Alfredo's playing. Alfredo had previously lived in Okinawa as a Navy dependent. He used to play in the clubs but now as a Christian, he had come back a new man to share the love of Christ in worship. If you look real carefully, you will see Tom on the drums.
Pastor Alvin shared the message at the Door of Faith Church. This would later become the building God gave us and the beginning of the ministry of Calvary Chapel Okinawa.
Deb, Richard, Jen, Alvin, Ally and Willie...
Farah was a part of that first team too. Her sister, Jen was one of our first missionaries after we moved here in Feb. 01. On this trip, Farah was pregnant with Caleb. One funny thing is that the apartment were the school put us in would later become where Glenn and Farah lived when they ministered at OCSI.

Super Old School

Calvary Chapel started out as a bible study on Sunday nights. At that time, the Lord brought Jacob Villa, who we love like a son to this day, and Jon & Vanessa Fredriksen, who will always be our family. Jon & Jacob led worship for us.
This when God brought our first missionary, Richard Bueno. Richard was and continues to be a huge blessing to us. We are grateful to the Lord for His bringing Richard. We thankful to Livingwater for sending him out to us. Pastor Tom announced one day without Richard even knowing- he is going to Okinawa to help Rick.
The super early gang. Michiko, Susie, DeeDee, Akiko and Vanessa.
Look at Bekah! She looks like Ben with a wig on! What crack up! The good old brown van.
We had such great stories... so many tires we went through... no a/c in the hottest summer in OKinawan history!... when Lester and Aaron left the roof open and it rained all night... it became a pool... then he made Judy clean it up... when the Livingwater team accidently took the wrong brown van out of the OCSI parking lot.... ah, the history of the vehicles are just as lively as the people. God is good.

Japanese Outreach Fellowship Luncheon

On the first Sunday of the month, we have our Japanese Outreach Fellowship time. It is open to all but geared towards the Okinawans and Japanese. It is our heart to reach out to our community with the love of Jesus. This luncheon time gives us an opportunity to get to know each other and to invite our unsaved friends to an informal fellowship.
As you can see, and with many of the Okinawan and Japanese churches, the women are open and receptive more than the men. It is an interesting dynamic to observe. We praise the Lord regardless and pray for more men to saved and raised up in the church.
Here, Naka-san is teaching from Genesis 3. Please pray for us and with us. The vision is that God will continue to bless this endeavor and it will grow into a home study or similar.

Surprises

It was great to see both Yumi and Keisuke. They came out to the baptisms too.

Keisuke's been away at college in China. While he was away, his mom & sister got saved and were baptized on Easter. After years of praying for them, Keisuke was just so blessed to hear that God had finally answered his prayers. We continue to pray for his dad too!

We are looking forward to the fellowship time we will enjoy with Keisuke and with Yumi.

Beach Baptisms

After our Anniversary BBQ on Sunday, a group of us gathered at Nakagusuku Beach for worship and baptisms.
It was a hot humid day but what a blessing for those getting baptized to have the love and support of the body of Christ.
Nick and his wife, Erin were the first.
Then our dear sister, Seiko. Seiko is Okinawan and she is deaf. It is amazing that she is so faithful to come to church to learn the Word of God. Vanessa O. was her very good friend that knew American sign language and would translate the message for her. The crazy thing is that Seiko knows Japanese sign language but through God's grace, she was able to understand and communicate with Vanessa. Seiko continues to come and others are helping as best we can. We are praying that God would bring us or raise up another person to help Seiko through sign. Please pray for her and for God to bring us a translator. Seiko has brought many friends to church over the past two years too!! What a blessing.
While the girls prayed for the sisters, the guys gather around to pray for our brother, Nick.