Roberta lives in Tokyo where she is coordinating a volunteer program with the Japan Baptist Union by finding places in Japan needing a volunteer, and then finding the right volunteer from American Baptist Churches to fit those needs. She also speaks in churches and conducts Bible and English Classes.
She writes: After a full year of knowing that some time I would need to move, the time came, suddenly at that, for me to vacate the mission house in Tokyo that has been occupied by American Baptist missionaries for fifty years.  As I watched the house being torn down I wondered about all the stories those walls could tell; how many Japanese had heard the gospel for the first time? How many had met Christ or had their faith strengthened there?  I know that those walls could tell of many tears, but at the same time I can imagine the thousands of prayers that were sent up by at least seventeen missionaries and MKs over the years who lived there.  We could also compile a long list of American Baptists who stayed in the Mitaka House while observing the work in Japan.  In the last year, as the word spread about tearing the house down, I heard from a number of Japanese Baptists as well, who lived in the house for a few months to a year.  No mistake, God blessed that house as a refuge for hundreds of people.
 
And now our prayer is that the new plans for this property as a vessel for the gospel will come to fruition containing the fingerprints of God.  The Lord willing, I will move back to the Mitaka property in a new building in two years. 

In June, a worship band of four young men called the “Amenables” arrived. They had a busy schedule of performance and teaching in churches and schools where they introduced praise music in worship services.  Lee Ann and Gordon Hwang, IM missionaries in Yokohama did most of the coordination of this group.  This was the first such team in the Tokyo-Yokohama area since we began volunteer service last year.
For example, the Amenables lodged for two nights at our Baptist Seminary.  There, there are only five seminary students who are taught in the traditional way, with no exposure to praise music.  At the seminarians’ weekly worship service the Amenables gave their testimonies as they introduced the new music.  “We were so surprised at how natural and beautifully they integrated the two,” the seminarians told me later.  “Far more meaningful than we ever imagined it would be.  We truly felt God’s presence.”
•    Pray for the growing ministry of Roberta in bringing volunteers to minister in Japan.
•    Pray for the successful and timely completion of the new mission house and volunteer residence.