Well, the cold of the Tokyo winter is just starting to melt away and we are beginning to feel the first warm breezes of spring. And as we are heading into a new season, it is a blessing to stop and reflect on God's faithfulness this last winter.
Last time I wrote you all I told you about the new Bilingual fellowship "ALIVE" that we had started up on Saturdays. I want to thank you so much for your prayers. We have now reached the half year mark since we started the service and it has been a very blessed time. Last year we started the service studying in the book of James. By God's grace, we have finished James and and we are about to finish the book of Jonah. We have recently made a blog for this service and have started to post the messages from the service as well. Please give it a look when you have the time.
http://horizonalive.blogspot.jp
Also thank you for praying for the fellowship time for this service. It has been a amazing time for us and I look forward to it every week. It has been great to hear some of the conversations that have been going on in the fellowship and to see new friendships made with members of the different services. Pray that God would continue his work of unity in the service. Also please pray for the next
steps of this service. Now that we have started the service, we want it to more and more become a welcoming space for Non christians who are wanting to study English as well. And while we have had a couple of my English students attend the service since we started, please pray for wisdom in inviting people and ways to open doors to minister to those we are teaching English too through the ALIVE service. Also please continue to pray for our translators and worship leader as they grow in their service.God has also opened a new door for the ministry here at Tokyo Horizon Chapel. A pastor from central Tokyo has recently opened up his church for us to use on Sunday nights in the city of Hiroo. This new service will be the start of a new church campus for us. It will be the fifth service we have on Sunday between our two main campuses. It is also been decided that it will be a bilingual service and I have been given the opportunity to act in a supporting role in the service and give the teaching when Pastor Hirano is not able to. There are many foreigners in the area as well as Japanese interested in international culture. So please pray that God would use this new church plant to minister to the people of central Tokyo and many would come to know Jesus.
Thank you for your prayers for Shine Kids and the Shine English program. The Shine Kids in Setagaya is continuing to grow. So much so that we had to start a new class on that day, which brings Thursdays to 3 classes of 12. Our Classes in Machida remain steady and more and more, the children have been coming to the church events that we have been putting on. Another blessing happened recently with the graduating children. For many years, we have had the problem of Children who aged out of Shine Kids. We would then loose contact with them soon after making the window for ministering to them very short. Some in the past entered the Shine English language school, but most didn't. This year as kids are graduating in April, for the first time our whole advanced class that would have been finishing Shine Kids is going to be joining the Shine English Language school. Not one of them will be leaving. We praise God for the continued opportunity to serve them and their families. Please pray that God would continue to use us to speak into their lives and hearts.Last but not least, as you all know, we are gearing up for our trip to Sonora at the end of this month. We will be bringing our team of 12 from our church to homestay with CC Sonora Families. All of the team, especially the kids we will be bringing, are all very excited. Being as the church body in Japan is so small, you don't know what an encouragement it is for the Japanese Christians to spend time with their extended family overseas and see that God is at work all over the world. I want to thank you all personally for the opportunity. There has never been a time back in Sonora that I have not come away encouraged and rekindled for the work here in Japan. I pray the same for this team on this trip.
I can't wait to see you all soon.
Much Love,
Alex, Tomoko, Daisy, and Caleb Robinson
P.S. Daisy and Caleb are doing great. Daisy is going to be entering kindergarten next month and Caleb is running around like crazy and toting around his toy guitar wherever he goes. And as is obvious by the picture, they both love to sing.
