Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone,
Glad to be able to write you all again after the finish of a blessed Shine Kids Fall Semester. Thank you all for your prayers for new students as we had 8 new students between the Setagaya and Machida campuses. Well, 9 if you include my little girl Daisy dancing with the rest of the Shine Kids. The time we spent together was great and the time my wife spent with the Shine Kids moms was blessed as well.
Two weeks after the Shine Kids Semester ended, we had our annual International Bazaar after the Japanese church service on Sunday. Some of the Shine Kids were able to come by and perform the song and dance that we were practicing this semester and play games with the other Sunday school kids. I also was able to meet some of the dads of the Shine Kids that I had never met before which is always great. Pray for vision for making more community events like this.

Please be praying for us as we make our preparations for next years Shine Kids. I have been feeling lead to make changes to the program. Starting from next April, Lord willing, we want to begin teaching one-on-one classes in addition to the regular Shine Kids and to be open Tuesday through Friday .  Also we want to start opening up the classes to older students. Up to this point, our program has been ministering to kindergarten and early elementary aged kids. But we want to start reaching out to junior high and maybe even high school aged kids.  Please pray that God will open the doors to where we are supposed to go, and close the doors to where we shouldn't.

Thank you for praying for our kids event in October. The VBS Mini (which is what we ended up calling it) was a great time. Many kids from the Shine Kids as well as kids from the from the Japanese and English service came. The helpers also were a very mixed group, some coming from the college fellowship, some from the English and Japanese services, and even some of the junior high group kids helped out with the event. It was a three hour program with the theme of Noah's ark. We sang kids worship songs, had an English lesson and games about animals, had a Bible story time, as well as a craft (We made a huge balloon out of cut up garbage bags that kids could walk around in!) and lunch.  It was such a blessed time in fact, that we have decided we are going to be having a VBS Mini event every three months. The next VBS Mini is going to be December 6th, the VBS Christmas, and we already have 19 kids from the Shine Kids Program signed up. Please pray for more kids to sign up and for helpers.

Also please be praying for the Cafe Salem. As lately the customers have been fewer and fewer and as some volunteers have had to step back from work at the cafe, the church staff has been praying about what direction the cafe should take next and what changes should be made. Currently the cafe has been closed for two weeks and will be opening up later this month only for reservations for a while. Again, please pray for guidance and wisdom for the staff as decisions are made about what to do next.

Thank you for your prayers for the Wednesday night English Cafe time and International Bible study that I have been leading. We have people coming every week for the English time and many opportunities to share the Gospel. Please pray for the seeds that have already been planted through the English Cafe time to grow. As for the Bible study, we finally made it through the book of Deuteronomy. Now, before we head into the book of Joshua, we are taking a break to do some special focused studies. Pastor Rich taught a 5 week study on Biblical prophesy that I was blessed to translate for. And now I am teaching a 7 week course on Apologetics. Recently we have been covering world religions, what they believe, and questions that we can ask them. We have been blessed to have a few new faces at the bible study including catholic and non-christian guests. Please pray for more and more people to come to the bible study and that it will be used by God for whatever he wants to do. Also please pray for Shane and Akari (the couple in the picture above) who run the Gospel Cafe. Pray that God would bless the cafe and provide them with everything they need.

Thank you for praying for the mother's meeting that my wife has been leading. They have been
meeting together for a time of prayer and sharing once a month and they are all going out together for fellowship often. It has been a great time for the new moms in our church to encourage one another and talk about what it is to be a Godly wife and mom. Please pray for more women to be added to the fellowship as it has had such a visible effect on all the moms in the group. Also God has been putting it on my wife's heart to do a women's event in the near future which is badly needed in the church. Pray for God to reveal the timing to my wife about this.

Please also be praying for the Christmas season, there are a lot of events in December including
Christmas concerts and programs. Please be praying for those bringing family members and co-workers to these events and that God would bless the time and conversations.

Thank you always for your prayers and support.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Sincerely,
Alex, Tomoko, and Daisy Robinson





P.S. Daisy will be 1 1/2 years old this month. She is running around like crazy now and is talking all the time. She also loves dancing around and reading books with us. Her favorite word right now is, "No!". So please pray for patience for us ^_~.