Newsletter Vol 1 - Website, YouTube, Friendly Fire

[Click PLAY to listen instead of reading]

Not SPAM

Apologies! It seems that our very first Newsletter (Vol. 0, sent on July 24) some of you didn’t receive because it went straight to your SPAM folder. Please double-check your SPAM folder. Therefore this 2nd Newsletter (Vol. 1), I am emailing directly to everyone just in case. :) Moving forward, I will continue using MailChimp as our mailer, so please check your SPAM folder.

Website up!

I have just finished creating our website… well, most of it. Please take a look! (https://vicmo.cc) I will eventually be posting our newsletters there as well… and our YouTube channel stuff too!

Follow us on YouTube!

A special shout out to Tim K for being honest in saying, “I don’t really read newsletters…” Well, we want to do whatever we can to stay in touch and to share what the Lord is doing in us and through us here in Japan! So if that means a YouTube channel, then subscribe on!!! Praise the Lord for awesome ways to keep in touch! Here’s a link to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/tokyodreaming

Prayer request: Under Friendly Fire

This past week has been especially tough. We had just finished our mandatory 2 week quarantine and were looking forward to freedom, apartment hunting, and visiting family in Niigata (about 5hrs NW of Tokyo) for my birthday weekend… however, that’s also when a lot of the spiritual warfare began… and from very unexpected sources.

By God’s grace, we have temporary housing for the next 2 months because a distant relative of Motoko’s happened to have an empty house about 20mins bike ride from school. However, the school support staff (who have been very helpful) were really not happy that we didn’t do things their way. (1.) They wanted us (in June) to commit to take over the lease of an exiting teacher, but I explained that we didn’t have peace from the Lord to commit to a home sight unseen. (2.) They wanted to rush us into permanent housing by the end of July, but we were quarantined till July 29th and I explained that we didn’t have peace from the Lord to rush into permanent housing; that we needed time to look and pray and anyways we are able to stay at a relative’s empty home until we find something permanent. (3.) They were also pushing us to take a lease from a missions org’s housing that couldn’t guarantee that we could lease it for more than 6 months… and with 51 large sea freight boxes coming in another 2 months, we didn’t like the idea of unpacking all our belongings, having the lease suddenly end, repacking our boxes and needing to find new housing again.

It is not easy… as the old Victor prefers to choose by logic & reasoning alone. But God’s been training us (me in particular) to wait on Him and to trust in Him alone. I have decided to follow Jesus, no matter where that takes me, no matter how foolish I look to others, and no matter the personal cost. I have worked in a Christian school for the past 14 years, so I am aware that we all fail and there are very different levels of intimacy with the Lord even in a Christian workplace… but I was not prepared to see it at a Christian school that is staffed entirely by missionaries. Please pray that we continue to follow the Lord’s ways and not man’s ways, that the light of Christ in us would conquer the darkness around us (and not the other way around), and that we would find a beautiful place (from the Lord) to call home soon.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

Love,

Victor & Motoko