Friends,

Our very Japanese-looking family sends joyful Easter greetings to you all!

We wanted to share a quick prayer request with you as an update this month...

Two other Christian teachers and I will be trying to restart the YMCA after-school student group at Kanto Gakuin Junior/Senior High school.  To say "restart" is not really fair.  This group--the only Christian club out of the 25 or so student clubs at the school--has been in existence ever since the school began.  But for the past 15 years or so, there haven't been regular meetings.  The group has only met now and then for scattered volunteer activities.  Following that pattern of decline, we start the year with ONE student!

So this week, we'll be starting a drive to get more kids involved.  With gifts from American Baptists like you, we've been able to completely refurbish the clubroom (which had turned into sort of a big closet!).  We now have nice carpet down, two sets of shelves for our volunteer activity supplies, song books to go around, new zabuton (cushions for sitting on the floor), colorful posters on the wall (courtesy of YMCA of the USA!), and a new CD/cassette player.

Our lone, brave 8th grader will be sharing about the club tomorrow at a meeting of all the 240 new incoming students.  Please pray for him that he'll not be too nervous, and that we'll have lots of new kids come in for a peek at the clubroom and a trial experience at our first meeting.

At each of the two weekly meetings, we plan to have a Bible reading and conversation time, a game, some free time, and then some planning times for Saturday volunteer activities in the Yokohama area.  Please lift up a quick prayer for students at Kanto Gakuin Junior/ Senior High School this week!

Also, we have our web page updated.  If any of you would like to see some recent pictures, use this link: http://pws.prserv.net/jpinet.dpdavid/davindex.html

Grace, Peace and a Joyous Easter!

Dwight & Kari

Adam, Sarah & Isaiah