Sunday Night Concert "Amazed"

This past Sunday night, a good friend and dear brother, Pastor Vee held an outreach concert at Music Town Koza.   Pastor Vee is a very gifted musician and the Lord has blessed his music ministry greatly.  He has a heart to reach the lost through music and has a weekly radio broadcast as well in the Koza area.  He just released his second album, "Amazed".  He loves to do a variety of styles and will take old classic hymns and songs and add some crazy new flavor to them - all to the glory of God. 

Wednesday Night Fellowship

Every Wednesday we gather together for a dinner fellowship (potluck style) before our bible study and prayer time. It is always a great time together in the Lord. This past Wednesday was Allison's last Wednesday with us, so we got her a cake. It's not a permanent good-bye but a "see you later".
Everyone brings a dish to share and there's always plenty of food. The fellowship time is awesome just hanging out and breaking bread together like the early church. That's Laura in the picture by the way- trip out on this! She and Kristy were in high school together at Corona High School! Laura's family is in the military and God brought them here. They have been plugged in Calvary Chapel for many years. We are so blessed God brought their family. Now I can get the real scoop on Kristy's high school days.
Look! Another wonderful gal has come from CC Montebello to serve the Lord with us here in Okinawa. We are so blessed to have Johanna back. She is teaching at Okinawa Christian School this year. Please pray for her first year there.
Ricardo was teaching Jason about the Marines. Jason, who is an Army Soldier said he is Army Strong. Ricardo said that ARMY stands for Ain't Ready to be a Marine Yet. Just kidding. They were just talking.

Ah ha. Here is the happy engaged couple. It was great having Derek down for a few days. He is always such an encouragement the guys here. Please pray for Derek, he returned to Taipei to continue the work for the Franklin Graham Festivals and Allison returned to L.A. to prepare for the upcoming wedding and return to work at CC Montebello.
here is Allison's blog by the way. She is very gifted in many arts!
http://www.sadoristudio.blogspot.com/

Our Fellowship Hall gets a face lift!

We have been so blessed by all the new space God has given us. Our first floor houses our Fellowship Hall area where we gather to hang out, for bible study, for our Wednesday Night Potluck dinners, and all kinds of things. It is such a cool space but we just made it more lively with some splashes of color.
I couldn't get ahold of Paula J. fast enough or send pics to Mandy or Debbie- those that have professional interior design back-grounds but we just picked some fun colors and went for it.
Glenn said the blue and mustard remind him of the Boy Scout colors. Chris said it was like Chevy's Mexican Restaraunt. Everyone's a critic.

Special Prayer Request for Hallelujah

Hey guys, could you please pray for our little buddy, Hallelujah. Not only does he have a cool name but he is a cool kid. Last year, he went through a series of chemo and radiation treatment for cancer in his throat. A few weeks ago, when he went in for a check-up, the doctors found another mass in his throat and also in his lungs. The praise is that the mass in his throat was not malignant but the one in his lungs was. Please pray with us that our Good and Gracious God would bring healing to his body.


One of the blessings is that Hallelujah's dad, Yoshi works at the hospital. Hallelujah said that his dad would come and bring him a better lunch and Yoshi would eat Hallelujah's - that's the love of a good father.

Andersen Family Welcomes One More

More babies! Welcome Jennie Lucile Andersen! We are so excited you are here!Matt and Jess welcomed the arrival of their new baby girl, Jennie Lucile on Monday, August 25th at 6:12 PM. She was 20" long and a hearty "Calorie Chapel" weight of 8 lbs 9 oz.
Congratulations Matt & Jess! We love you guys and are excited for your new additional.
Please pray for the Andersen's as they continue to host a home bible study/ church plant in the New Jersey area.

Labor Day Church Picnic

Okay, I know it's been like FOREVER since the blog was updated - forgive me - this thing is like doing the lawn - never seem to have enough time in the day.... but I am stoked to put some fun new pics because Allison is here with us and has been taking some awesome shots.

Here are some from our Church Picnic Day at the Park.  God blessed our day of fellowship BIG TIME and we enjoyed a wonderful day hanging out with the families of Calvary Okinawa.

We had a softball game and some of the families went swimming at the park pool and others enjoyed the day the Lord gave us in sweet fellowship.

Here the McCords are kicking back chatting with Dwight and Maggie.  Dwight is a Sergeant Major in the Marine Corps and Maggie just got a new job at the hospital working with military folks returning from deployment.  Both families have been a huge blessing to the fellowship.

The Newlons and Jodie Harmon hang out and enjoy getting to know each other.
Erin stopped by after her 40 mile bike ride!  Erin is a tri-athlete and bikes, swims and runs some serious mileage every week.  She and her family have been so awesome.  Erin gave her life to Jesus this past Easter and was baptized the following week.  She has continued to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.  
Here some of the guys line up and get ready for the softball game.  Okay- why is Glenn raising his hand?  Take a moment and share with us your answer to that question - "Why is Glenn raising his hand?"  This should be fun.  Don't be too mean.
We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.  It was simply a great day in the Lord.

We are so blessed to live here on Okinawa and have such a awesome church family.   Plus - we're thinking of getting a church softball game going... we got some serious players here. :)

Mastriano retires!

Glenn and Rick enjoy a Johnson sandwhich. ;)

The Mastrianos with Takako, Kevin,
Glenn, Rick, and the McIlhenneys.

Out on the town

After the conference, a group of us headed out to the city. We were blessed to hook up with our good friends Joseph from Montebello and Chihiro and Pastor Chizuo.
The streets were packed with folks on the last night of Golden Week.
Joseph is not a shy guy. We saw this bear walking across the street. Our first reaction was "Glenn, where did you get that hat?" then we realized, "oh, it's not Glenn, this bear is smiling too much."

We got to hang with the boys from Iwakuni too! It was a fun time.

Calvary Chapel Japan Conference - Arrived

This year the conference was held at Yoyogi Olympic Park and it was awesome. We had a wonderful time studying through the book of Galatians. "Set Free to Serve" was our theme. Not only was it a good time in the Word but also in Worship and in Fellowship and breaking bread with the body of Christ.
This is Jack Bell from Calvary Chapel Kamakura.

Jim Stewart and his lovely wife, Lo came over from Kansas City to be our main guest speakers. They did a great job encouraging us in the faith and our calling to serve.
We met up with Stomer on our trip. He's plugged with Calvary Kokubunji now and Chizuo has him on the straight and narrow. We miss Yasutomo Juan Y Miyagi tons but were so grateful to hang with him for a few days.
Here's Jim, me, Mike and Glenn.
There's Travis from Tokorozawa. He was doing the English translation for us. Quite the comedian Travis is.
He made this sweet website by the way. www.calvaryjapan.com Hope you enjoy.

100 Yen Sushi Go Round

Takako was craving sushi so Masaru took us to this famous 100 yen sushi place in Shibuya. It was jam packed with people but we waited for our turn and taste of the famous 100 yen fish.
Normally Masaru is a moderate kind of eater. Nothing too crazy, except when it comes to sushi. He can chow down on a serious note with the best of the heavies when it comes to sushi.
This is one of the funner experiences of dining in Japan. The plates go round and round and you take what you want and let pass by what you don't. The coolest thing is that Glenn actually was game! The bad thing was I put my camera away and didn't get any documented proof of his visit. Don't worry he didn't eat any real sushi- cooked maguro, egg, shrimp and a fruit juice... I think that was his selections.
The chefs in the middle were busy all night making the fine delicacies of raw fish and rice.
We had a blast. You had to eat at least 7 plates worth or they would chop off your finger. Well, okay, I don't know what they would do but Glenn did 7 plates. (Yoko had to "donate" one to him) He offered to repay the favor at "All You Can Eat BBQ" next time.

Calvary Chapel Japan Conference -Our journey out

A small group of us set out on Sunday after service to travel up to Tokyo for the annual Calvary Japan Conference. At the airport, we ran into Calvary Naha's crew. It was good to see the brothers.

This year, the entire Naka family came up. It was a blessing to fellowship with them.
Please pray for them as they continue to serve in our Japanese ministry.
Pastor Masaru says I have no antenna. He is right. We are thankful that he were able to travel with him through the subways and streets of Tokyo. He is a great tour guide.
Look at all them people! It was the beginning of Golden Week here in Japan. The city of Shibuya was packed with people. Its always a neat place to visit but I am glad I don't live in the city.

saying goodbye is never easy

It's coming again. That time of the year when they begin to move. The military call it "PCS season" when Uncle Sam says your time is up and you gotta go. It's always bitter sweet. Last week we prayed for Ashley and the Prutch family. We already miss them big time.

We also prayed for Ed & Lauren, pictured here. Along the way, God blessed them with cute little Caden. We got to dedicate him a few weeks ago. It was wonderful.

Please pray for us and our hearts. A little peice of it breaks off each time a family moves on. We are grateful that God has allowed us to minister in such a wonderful place with wonderful people.

I look forward to that day, when there will be no more "good byes" or "sayonara's". As they said back in the day, "See you here or there or in the air!" Love you all.

Mark & Suwanee

How could I forget that God has brought us to one of the most beautiful places in all His creation? Today was one of those days that we were just blessed by dear friends and the incredible island God has called us to.
Pictured above is my beautiful bride on a secluded beach on the east side of Okinawa.
A very dear couple, Mark & Suwanee asked if they could renew their wedding vows here on the beach. They will be leaving us this summer and wanted to honor the Lord for their marriage and recommit to each other on the same island that they were married before they depart to the states. I was blessed by them and for them.
Mark is a military pilot and Suwanee is professional photographer. I think she would not be too happy since I got a picture with their eyes closed but they still look good.
You can check out her stuff (its pretty good compared to my shots):
www.suwaneephotography.typepad.com
- and -
http://www.suwaneephotography.com/


Look at this place! I know what you are thinking. How can we suffer for Jesus like this here?

The Place where God has Chosen

God has been so gracious to us. As many of you know, a few months ago we were heading towards being without a home for our church. We had searched high and low, all the while praying and seeking the Lord in His Will for the place He had for us. The theme of our time was amplified by our weekly bible study in Deuteronomy by the repeated phrase "That you may worship... that you may prosper.. that you may obey... in the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide."
Well, God in His faithfulness and perfect timing, did in deed, show us the place where He chose for us to make His name abide.
And we are grateful.

The plan at the time was that this was going to be a temporary holding place for us. There was another building that we were interested in but was not going to be available until June of this year. So, we moved in here to the Beauty School with the intentions of moving on shortly after. But God has led us to remain and stay longer. We are excited about the near future and the neighborhood God placed us in. It is very rural unlike our old spot. We are in the middle of this little village with great opportunity to shine the light of Jesus.

Proverbs says that the plans of the heart belong to men but God directs his steps. So, we are trusting that God has directed our steps in this new step of faith.

Please pray with us. The first floor of the building has become available. The owners wanted to rent to us but at a high rate. We prayed and asked for a much lower amount - more than half in fact - and guess what? They said "okay". Okay!.. Okay... that means we now will be spreading out alittle more and taking over the first floor as well. It is very exciting and there is crazy space for us to do some really fun things. The picture above is the office space which also has three other additional office spaces, plus a tatami room, kitchen, shower room. There is a large meeting room as well all on the right side.

On the left side is the open meeting area where our Planet 45 kids meet already plus three large class rooms that all connect and open up to one huge room. Needless to say, we are once again just blessed out of our flip flops at God's provision and goodness.
So with it comes ideas of a sweet fellowship area - coffee shop - bookstore - kinda - deal but we'll see what God has in store.

The owners want to sell us the building and we are praying if this is what God would have for us. Would you join us in praying for this as well?