New Years’ Day Visit To Suiten-gu Shinto Shrine Near Our Apartment In Tokyo

Jordan and Nitasha News

February 2024 Update

"Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand." - Proverbs 19:21 (ESV)

Dear Friends,

We have been back on UK soil for about 3 weeks now and we have loved seeing so many of you already! We’ve been describing our testimony of the Lord’s provision over the last few months, as well as some interesting stories and insights from the pastors, missionaries and leaders we visited whilst in Japan.

We guess you’ll all be wondering - “so, what’s next?”. What’s next is finding jobs fundraising and visas.

As we write this newsletter, we are actively searching for temporary, full-time jobs to help us in these few months that we will be here. We anticipate living in the UK until we’ve received our visas and completed all our fundraising, which should take around 3-6 months, if not sooner. During that time, we aim to work and earn and visit supporting churches to share about God’s amazing work in Japan and how we’ve been invited to join in.

Regarding our visas, we are glad to announce that we have accepted the invitation to join Japan Kingdom Church in their efforts to make disciples of Jesus in Japan! JKC will be our “receiving church”, which is crucial for us to obtain Religious Activities Visas in Japan (we explained this process in our November 2023 Update).

Pastor Marcel Jonte and his wife Chiyaki are amazingly, warm, humble and kind people who have recently celebrated moving their church into a new location in West Tokyo. JKC is a bilingual church, delivering services in both English and Japanese. After having attended their church, sitting with them to share our calling, and learning of the vision they have for Japan and their local community, the Holy Spirit made it clear to us that JKC is the place for us. And thankfully Marcel and Chiyaki agree!

Elim HQ are delighted that our 7 week trip was a success and cannot wait to meet with Marcel and Chiyaki virtually, to iron out details and make things official so that we can begin the visa application process.

In Tachikawa with Marcel and Chiyaki.

We are deeply grateful for all of the hospitality that the people and churches we visited had extended to us, and we are incredibly grateful to the JKC family too.

We had such an amazing time in Japan - seeing God at work and learning about the Church, and we have been so encouraged by the words of fruitfulness and encouragement from all the pastors and leaders and creatives and missionaries that we met. No words can describe how excited we are to get back to Japan and begin ministering alongside JKC and all those we had the honour of meeting!

We wish we could tell you all the stories and share all the pictures with you in this update, but it would be even better if we could be invited to your church so you can hear all the details ;-)! Thank you all so much for your continued support. Please pray this month for:

• Working in the UK in the meantime (we are looking for paid jobs in admin, audio or pastoral ministry).
• The handshake between JKC and Elim HQ to begin the application of the visas.
• And reaching our fundraising goal by June 2024!

We love you and thank you for journeying with us!

All our love,

Rev. Jordan & Nitasha Christian
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