Last week John was with four of our Tokyo pastors, a lay couple, and Phil Tsai, short-term missionary, serving with a team in Iwate Prefecture. In John’s previous trip with the Nerima church they worked with the Iwate 3.11 Church Network. This time they stayed at Pastor Kondo’s church where he outlined his vision for church ministry throughout this prefecture. Iwate presents several large challenges to mission ministry. There are only a few existing churches in the area, the prefecture is divided into several regions with their own culture, and there are many cities and towns with no gospel witness whatsoever.
In Yamada City we helped move valuable medical books and journals from a destroyed hospital to one protected from the tsunami. This city has no churches but over 20,000 in population. 
In Otsuchi City we visited one neighborhood hard-hit by the tsunami and flooding. The people were still trying to clean out their houses. John and Phil were part of a team pulling up floor boards. This is similar work John did a month earlier in another city. For this neighborhood the team prepared a hot Italian spaghetti lunch for 200 people and handed out supplies. This city has no churches. Please pray for Iwate Prefecture and the spiritual need there for disciples, leaders, and churches.
This is a video done by the Rengo about our trip. There is some Japanese narration but enough English titles to follow it closely.
This was the first short-term worker to arrive to work on teams. Phil has been to Japan about 7 times several working at the CPI Conferences. He will be returning with a work team to work August 9-18. Let us know if you would like to join that team. There is also a team forming in mid-June. http://www.convergeworldwide.org/reach-nations/japan-relief
Phil made several videos of our trip which are at YouTube.
Monday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W910hQ2Djrs