Dear Friends and Family,

The persimmons are out here, the leaves are beginning to turn, and the "baked sweet potato" man is driving his little delivery truck around the neighborhood again.  Fall has come!  Adam is busy playing soccer and studying Chinese characters every day, Sarah has been occupying herself learning her English letters and making dirt-balls ("odango") with her friends, and little Isaiah has hit the "I want to pull every loose item I can find off the shelves and tables" stage.  Fun, fun, fun at the mission house!  We hope you all are enjoying the season, too!

I wanted to send you all a quick update about some mission news from Kanto Gakuin Jr./Sr. High School...

If you look at the attached picture, you see three crazy guys trying to put on a t-shirt that they had pulled out of the freezer about 5 minutes before.  Yes, they're nuts.  But they also happened to be playing a game I had inflicted upon them.  During the volunteer camp to the Japan Inland Sea, we took one night out for games and a campfire.  That night, they had to divide into teams and see which team of three could fit the frozen t-shirt onto their chosen "victim" the fastest.  Poor Kawai-kun in the middle!  (He kept shouting, "Samu-ee! Samu-ee!"--"It's freezing! It's freezing!", throughout the whole ordeal).

The reason I'm sending along this picture this month is that the guy on the right--Hajime-kun, told me just last week that he had decided to become a Christian and be baptized at a church near his home.  This was a real encouragement to me because Hajime has been in my English Bible elective class at the high school for two years now.  

Hajime's decision reinforced something to me that I had already known--that becoming a Christian in Japan often takes a very long time of searching and LOTS of personal contacts with LOTS of trustworthy Christians. Hajime has been going to a Christian school now for 6 years.  Before I came to the school, he had come to know and trust Rev. Oi, a former head chaplain.  In addition to his friendship with Oi-sensei, he also came to know a strong Christian teacher in the English department, and became good friends with a Christian classmate named Erika.  He began participating in the Seto Inland Sea volunteer trip 5 years ago, and along the way he had the chance to meet many Christians on those islands.  FINALLY, he landed in English Bible class!

All of this is to say that Hajime's decision has reinforced to me what we all know intuitively--non-Christians, especially non-Christians in predominately non-Christian countries--need to see personal care and concern from LOTS of different kinds of Christian people before the decision to choose Jesus' Way makes any sense to them.  For this reason, it's terribly important that a strong Christian witness remains in Japan.

I want to thank you all again for your support of our ministry.  We know that, nowadays, missionaries are not the only Christians in Japan!  They're not even the primary Christian workers in Japan--Japanese nationals are working hard at leading their churches.  But over and over again it's been reinforced to us that our being in partnership with national church leadership in Japan is a vital work.  As you can see from Hajime's journey, lots of different people, coming from various backgrounds but all part of the same Christian family, have helped him make the decision to walk Jesus' Way of Love.

If your church is taking part in the American Baptist World Mission Offering this month, please continue to support this work through your giving.  Especially this year as we face tremendous financial pressures.  Even more importantly, please continue to pray for Christians all around the world, who are striving just like you, to see God's Kingdom come.

And for you youth leaders wanting to use the frozen shirt game, here's a hint--don't totally soak the shirts before freezing them--they get really hard to pull apart! ;-)

Grace & Peace,

Dwight, on behalf of the whole fam',

Kari, Adam (8), Sarah (5) and Isaiah (1)

Dwight & Kari Davidson
American Baptist Churches/USA