Bethany Christian Assemblies, Japan Newsletter
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Kindergarten and Preschool ministries: Nisshin Bethany Kindergarten started with four children in 1974 and now is a fully accredited government registered school with 211 children and 75 children in the Pre-school program called the “Little Lambs Group’. We also accept the various disabled children that the other surrounding kindergarten have refused. We have 25 dedicated teachers and staff and begin each day with Bible study and prayer before the buses go out to pick up the children. Formerly we were only able to have about 12 children and their mothers in the Little Lambs Group in the kindergarten conference room, but now we have been able to use the new chapel facilities and expand the pre-school nursery program to 75 children. Every morning the children gather upstairs in the chapel hall for singing, prayer and a bible story. Several children also come forward each day to the front to pray for a specific need or thanks. They learn a Bible verse each week and we also have many opportunities for the parents to participate in monthly Christian parenting and family-life seminars. When the parents come for a special activity in the kindergarten they also attend the morning Bible story and singing time. On September 17th, we had a ‘Respect for the Aged Day’ to which several hundred of the children’s grandparents came to the kindergarten. The new church sanctuary was packed with over 200 children and 300 adults with people standing in the halls and the third floor nursery. The children sang at the top of their lungs and prayed for their grandparents and listened to a Bible story and devotion. Later they gave a present they had made and played various traditional Japanese games together in the kindergarten classrooms. Not only the children, but their parents, family and grandparents have an opportunity to hear the gospel; over half of the members of our church have been saved through their children and the kindergarten. Several weeks ago I was working in the church on a Saturday morning with some church members for a cleaning day when a boy in the four year class of the kindergarten and his mother came into the church entrance. The kindergarten does not have classes on Saturday, but the mother told me that she had received word that her mother had become gravely ill and was in the hospital. She had been very upset and was crying when her son told her that she should not worry but pray to God. She was very surprised because they are not Christians (yet), but her son insisted that they go to the kindergarten and church to pray before they went to visit his grandmother in the hospital. Not expecting to find anyone in the church we all gathered around and prayed for them and at the end the four year old boy also prayed that Jesus would make his grandmother well and thanked God for answering his prayer. The next day in the Sunday morning service, I asked everyone in the church to pray for the healing and salvation of his grandmother and family. When I talked to the mother the next week, she said that she felt so much better and peaceful after her son and we had prayed for her and that her mother was improving. She told her mother that the whole church was praying for her and she was very thankful and grateful. Thanks to the faith and prayer of a shy little four year old boy, now her mother, grandmother and whole family are open to the gospel and love of God.
We are very thankful that the Lord has give us grace and many opportunities to reach into the lives of many children and their families with the healing and saving power of the love of God and impact our whole city and surrounding communities for the Kingdom. As I serve on Nisshin City’s educational board and other committees and am also the head of the Nisshin Kindergarten Association, this provides the opportunity to invite Christian educational speakers and musicians to the the whole school system and be a witness to Christ and the church.
Summer Camps and Conferences: This summer was the hottest summer on record for over a hundred years in Japan with high humidity and several typhoons. In July, over 300 children and 50 staff came to the Bethany Vacation Bible School. About 20% of the children came for the very first time to church as they had been invited by their friends who had either attended Bethany Kindergarten or Sunday School. For lunch we had ‘flowing noodles’ as the children tried to grasp the noodles flowing in water through long open half-pipes we set up in the kindergarten playground. The following week we had a three day camp with about 100 children and staff and many stood up for prayer to believe and follow Jesus. We had our annual Summer Conference also in August with all the pastors and churches that we have started gathered for a time of teaching, prayer and fellowship.
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