We Have Tickets!

                                    February 28, 2019

As of today, we leave to Japan in exactly twenty days! Can you believe it? We are so stoked! On March 20th, we leave on an early flight to LAX, then directly to Tokyo. Once there, we will fly North to Sendai, the closest major city to where we will be serving. Finally, we will take a train to Ishinomaki. This trip will total up to about 30 hours! So that means a lot of prayers, coffee, and sleeping on the plane, although that last part may or may not happen.

The Lord has blessed our time here in California as we prepare for serving the Lord at Calvary Chapel Ishinomaki. We bought out our plane tickets a few months ago, and then applied for eligibility papers to receive missionary visas (A Missionary visa is what we’ll start out on, and it will allow us to serve in Japan for up to three years!). Once our eligibility was confirmed, we applied for missionary visas in LA.

We originally thought there was a Japanese consulate in San Diego, but later we found out that it no longer exists there. So, that meant we had to drive to LA to apply, where we submitted our paperwork. We had hoped we would be able to get our visas by mail, but the consulate said they would only accept a pre-printed address label for them to send with our visas. We didn’t have one, so we will be driving back up to LA again sometime next week to pick up the visas. Lord willing, this will be our last drive through LA traffic before we fly out.

In other news, The Lord has blessed us with a vehicle in Japan! It is a small wagon-style Japanese car and it runs well. It will be perfect for driving around Ishinomaki on rainy days (Ishinomaki gets about 40 inches of rain in a year!). Lots of water means lots of growth, and it will be beautiful to see God’s creation in the Spring and Fall times, with all of Japan’s dynamic color changes.

We have also been blessed with a few household items, including a refrigerator, a desk, a coffee table, and a couple of other things! As for where to put them, there are currently many housing options to choose from. We trust in The Lord that He will provide for us the place He chooses, that best fits our needs. As far as our monthly budget goes, we are almost reaching our monthly support goal. We thank The Lord for the generous blessings of our supporters, who continue to lift us up in prayer as we go out. We fully trust in the Lord to continue to provide for all of our needs, and we’re excited to see how He will do it!

Ministry in Ishinomaki

We’ll be joining up with pastor Richard and Emiko Giddens at Calvary Chapel Ishinomaki. Richard and Emiko had originally come to Ishinomaki with Samaritan’s Purse to do ministry after the 2011 tsunami. During the tsunami, most of Ishinomaki’s buildings were destroyed, and at least 3,500 people died or went missing. Rich and Emi decided to stay and share Christ’s love with the community.

Rich and Emi

Here is a before-and-after photo of the tsunami damage. The red arrows point to the hospital and cultural center, which both survived the event.


Most of the city has now been rebuilt. Here is a photo immediately after the tsunami, vs what it looked like a few years after.


Since then, the city has constructed a huge tsunami wall.


This is Calvary Chapel Ishinomaki. Part of the church’s ministry includes a café, where we’ll be volunteering.


The church also runs an after-school program that we’ll be helping out with. This is where parents can bring their children after school for help with homework; it’s a huge open door to connect with local families.

Another ministry we’ll be serving in is a seniors outreach, wherein we will go spend time with the elderly people in local senior-living homes, telling them about Jesus and singing songs with them (They love karaoke!).

We’ll also help out with CC Ishinomaki’s skate ministry. There are quite a few kids in town who skate; it’s a great way to build friendships with the local kids and invite them to church.

We’re also going to be helping out with things around the church, including cleaning, helping out with the Sunday and midweek services, etc.

As this ministry continues, we’ll be in prayer about how the Lord would use us, and we’ll be looking for opportunities to be a light in any way. We’re going to need a lot of prayers, so please be keeping us in prayer as we go!

Here are some of our prayer requests:

  • That we would love the people of Ishinomaki like Jesus loves them.
  • That The Lord would give us grace in learning Japanese fluently.
  • That people’s hearts would be prepared and receptive: that they would understand their need to be saved, and that Jesus loves them and can save them.
  • That our daily needs would be provided for.
  • That we would be sensitive to The Spirit’s leading, that we would be used in the exact way He wants to use us.

Thank you and may Jesus bless you!

With His love,

Cameron and Meryl Kendall

Made it Home, and Future Plans

Today marks one month since we arrived back in the States. The flight to the U.S. always seems shorter than the flight out of it, but we were exhausted nonetheless. When we  landed, we had nothing on our minds but sleep and carne asada burritos. The first week of adjusting to USA time was difficult, but our sleep schedules eventually caught up.

As for this update, it will cover the last couple weeks of our stay in Japan, as well as some info about the future as well!

After visiting churches in Tokyo, Meryl and I took a train way up North to Calvary Chapel Ishinomaki and visited pastor Rich and his wife Emi. Ishinomaki was one of the areas hit hard by the 2011 Tsunami. While visiting there, we heard several stories of the extreme things that people had to do to survive the catastrophe. One lady, who was inside her home when the wave struck, quickly found herself trapped as the water filled the first floor of her house. She survived by breaking a hole through the ceiling to the 2nd floor, and she was able to stick her head and hands through the hole to keep her head above the water. This is one of several stories that were told to us; some were about the people who survived, and others were of the people who tragically did not. Ishinomaki’s coast is now guarded by a huge wall, in order to prevent tsunamis from coming in again.
The church in Ishinomaki ministers to the community through a cafe outreach, along with worship services and Bible studies throughout the week. In addition, they visit a local elderly-people’s-home occasionally, and they are also looking to start a ministry for kids from the local school.

After waving farewell to our Ishinomaki friends, we hopped onto another train up to Hachinohe to visit the Galbreath family. Ron and Debbie Galbreath have been missionaries in their Northern area for more than 20 years, where they and their children continue to reach out daily through their relationships with those around them. They also hold church services each week at home. They have eight children, all of whom speak Japanese fluently. We were welcomed into their home with loads of hospitality, and they truly made us feel like part of their family. It was an encouragement to see all of them working together as a family with a passion to reach the lost.
They also arranged for us to take a tour of a Japanese school. Japanese schools are completely different from American schools, and it was a special experience to be able to see one first-hand.

After this, we took yet another train far down South to Nagoya, where we visited a local community church. This church is an international church filled with people from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ghana, and other places. Pastor Gary and his wife Carol have been there for over 20 years reaching out to the community. Several people have been raised up in this church to start churches in other countries around the world!

After this, we headed down to Calvary Osaka, also known as “Abide”, where we met Pastor Joseph and his wife Amy, along with their children. When Joseph originally came to Osaka, he was with a group that was holding a special event as a missions outreach. No one showed up to their event, and Joseph described it as very discouraging. Rather than turning away to seek out a more-receptive city, Joseph and Amy stayed and planted a church instead, which is now thriving as a community of growing, abiding believers. Through this progression, I can see that the Lord has placed in Joseph and Amy a godly determination, a sincere and Christlike stubbornness to love the people of Osaka with God’s love. God’s Word would describe this as: “longsuffering”.
It is easy to see the Lord’s persistently loving, abundantly merciful heart being extended toward the unreceptive masses of Japan. In fact, not only at Abide Osaka, but in each of the churches that we visited while in Japan, there is this enduring trait of perseverance and longsuffering , clearly reflecting the patient desire of the Lord for none to be lost.
We were blessed to help out at Abide during Easter Sunday, teaching Sunday school, where we made crafts, sang songs and told the children all about Easter. Afterwards, everyone at church was invited to a picnic in the park, where we all hung out on tarps under the Sakura (cherry blossom) trees.

On our final morning in Japan, we attended church at Calvary Logos Tokyo again, and said a big goodbye before heading to the airport.

Now a month has passed, and, after much prayer and thought, We’re happy to say that we’ll be coming alongside to serve with Calvary Ishinomaki! We’ll be raising support at various churches and setting aside funds from our jobs in order to go back to Japan in hopefully a year or less, if the Lord allows.
Thank you for all of your prayers and support; we’re excited to see what the Lord does with this open door that He’s given us.

Halfway There (3 weeks to go)

Hi everyone! Life in Toyko has been pretty crazy! The amount of people that are packed into this area never ceases to amaze us. One of the train stations we frequently stop at is Shinzuku station, the busiest in the world. Roughly 3.5 million people go through this station each day. During heavy traffic times, the crowds here are a lot like rivers or currents, with thousands of people all going one direction; there are several of these currents during the busy times, and you have to pick one to get into if you want to get anywhere.  Also, you’d better know where you want to go, because turning around and fighting against the flow is an awful choice (speaking from experience). The best way to turn around is to slip out of one current and step into one going the other way.

One evening, Meryl and I got into an extra-packed train heading home. We thought it was full, but we were very wrong. More and more people continued to press in through the train doors, and we became more and more packed against the people surrounding us. It was a little scary, actually. At one point Meryl said, “Uh… it’s getting kinda hard to breathe.”  I’m not sure how the doors shut, but they did, and several passengers were pressed against the glass. Then the train started to move, and the ride home was one I’m pretty sure will stick out clearly in our memories for the rest of our lives.  I didn’t feel like as much of a person as I did a tiny portion of a huge scoop of jello. As the train rounded each curve, we, the human jello blob, swayed with and against ourselves in perfect unison. To sum up what would be an arduous and sweaty story: we made it home and escaped out of the train, and I don’t think we’ll ever ride that train during that time of day again, if it can be avoided.

On a lighter note, we also took the time to check out Shibuya square, the busiest crosswalk in the world. During certain times of the day, somewhere from 2000 to 3000 people cross the street all at once, in several differnent directions; they call it: ‘The Scramble”, and rightly so. We purposely went there during the busy time to navigate across the square with thousands of other people. Never has crossing the street been so interesting.

Enough about crowds; here are some things about what the Lord is doing in the area:

Just recently, Meryl and I had the opportunity of going to help out at an outreach being held by Calvary Logos Tokyo. The church was offering a free concert to the neighborhood, featuring an up-and-coming Christian artist.  About 45 minutes before the start of the concert, some of the church members took Meryl and I out to the street corner with them to invite people to attend. We stayed outside until the last portion of the concert, which we got to sit in on. The church was packed with around 60 people or so.  Kiyomasa and Taeko (Calvary Logos’ pastor and his wife) told us that about half of the attendees were Christian fans of the musician, while the other half of the group consisted of unbelievers who live nearby the church. There were also a handful of other unbelievers that the musician’s Christian fans had invited.  It was great to see the turnout, and it will be interesting to see and hear in the coming months and years of the ways that God is reaching the community through this event.

On Sunday the 11th, we attended Calvary Chapel Fuchu’s morning service. We got lost on the way there, but when a local elderly woman and her granddaughter noticed us wandering around with confused looks on our faces, they broght us to the church. After the service, pastor Rich and his wife Candace told us about the ministry they are doing in their community. They run a Bible-based school for the local kids, as well as an ESL school.

Pastor Rich told us of how many of the believers who now attend Calvary Fuchu were saved as a result of the school ministry. For example, one of the children in the school had at one point asked for a Bible to take home, and was provided with a childrens’ Bible.  The mother of this child then began reading this little Bible to her and realized some of the truths therein. The mother went to the school and asked for something more in-depth. The school then provided her with a Bible for herself; she recieved Christ shortly after. Rich told us a few stories like this, where the people are being reached through their children. What an awesome thing!

 

This Sunday, we visited another Calvary church in the area: Calvary Kokubunji, also known as “Jesus Community”. There is a good mix of younger and older people who all fellowship together at this church alongside Pastor Chizuo and his wife, Mari. Chizuo met up with us earlier this week and told us about many of the things that the Lord is doing through the church and the people there. One of their ministries is a midweek young adult study; several unbelieving people have showed up to it and have started attending after discovering it on the internet. Another ministry that is on Chizuo’s heart to eventually start is a childrens’ home outreach. To prepare himself for this, he has been spending the past year volunteering to work each week with two young children who were taken out of difficult circumstances. He told us of how this has been a very fruitful, although often difficult, growing process for him and for the children he has been ministering to.

Pastor Chizuo also shared with us about the testimony of his grandfather, who used to be a very ardent Buddhist, but came to know Christ after having the gospel shared to him.  After deciding to follow Christ, One of the first things Chizuo’s grandfather did was to take all of his Buddhism-related things to the town’s river bridge. Once there, he publically tossed everything into the river; this made a clear statement of his life-change to the rest of the people in his town. He then became an evangelist, beginning by sharing the Gospel with his ardently Buddhist wife, who put her faith in Christ shortly after.

 

In the morning, Meryl and I are hopping onto a bullet train out of Tokyo. We’ll be gone for just over a week to visit churches up in some of the northern areas of Japan.
Thank you for all of your prayers and support! Please be praying that the Lord would be guiding us and speaking to us, and that all our trains and connections work out well.

 

 

In Him,

 

Cameron and Meryl

 

 

 

First Few Days

Hi everyone!

Today will be our 5th day here in Japan!

When we got off the plane, we delivered our bags to the airport’s baggage delivery service to take to our lodging. From there, we needed to hop on a few trains to get to the apartment. Stepping onto the first train platform, we realized that we would get to experience Tokyo’s evening commute time (when the trains get completely packed with people). At first, it wasn’t so crowded. As we boarded, a Japanese man reading a book came and stood by us. More people piled into the train car as it arrived at each subsequent stop; it soon became so crowded that several people were reading the man’s book, over his shoulder. We experienced this sardine-style travel on each of the trains until we got to our destination.

At one of the train stations, I (Cameron) reached for the phone in my pocket to take a look at which train we were supposed to take next. My hand reached into an empty pocket… the phone was gone! On that phone was all of our scheduling info for meeting churches, plus a lot of other important info for our trip. I double-checked my other pockets; yup, no phone. We retraced our steps back to the last ticket machine we had used. There was a counter next to it, manned by two workers. I asked them if a phone had been turned in, and, to our relief, it had been! In the midst of keeping track of our passports, backpacks, money, tickets, phones, sanity, and directions to our apartment, I had set down my phone at the ticket counter and had forgotten it there. Someone had found it and was kind enough to turn it in to the counter, where we picked it up. Thanking the Lord, we continued on and made it to our apartment.

The area we’re staying in is Machida, a suburb of Tokyo. Our apartment here is very small (about 100 square feet), but has everything we need, including a washer and a mini kitchen. It will serve as our main base as we travel out to meet various churches and fellowships.

After sleeping, we spent our first morning praying together and seeking the Lord. We then went to take a look at the surrounding area. We are surrounded by suburbs for miles and miles, with the exception of an occasional park. Throughout the city are innumerable reminders of the religions that Japan holds to; Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines seem to be in most parks, and even on some street corners. They are not merely decorative either; we saw dozens of people throughout the day worshiping at these sites.

On Wednesday, we attended a prayer service at Calvary Chapel Tokorozawa. This church is pastored by Travis Takamiya, who lives there with his family. The congregation meets in a little downstairs room in the middle of the suburbs. During the service, we prayed for the surrounding area, and for some specific needs of the people who attend church there.

On Thursday, Meryl and I both got a pretty bad cold. I walked to the nearest drug store and bought some medicine there. Meryl and I stayed home that day to recuperate. We are still sick today, but not nearly as bad.

Please pray that the Lord would continue to show us what He has for us here, as we seek Him each day, and that He would open doors for us to find the place he has for us in Japan.

 

Blessings,

Cameron and Meryl

Packed and Ready!

 

Two weeks ago, we made the official announcement at our church regarding the trip to Japan.  We informed everyone of our plans to be meeting with churches as we scout out Japan for the place the Lord has for us there; We were then prayed for. Now we’re packed and heading out!

Tomorrow morning we fly out of San Diego. Roughly 14 hours later, we’ll be landing at Haneda airport in Japan. From there, we’ll be taking 2 trains to finally get to Machida, where we’ll be staying.

Please be praying for us as we go, that there will be no delays, and that there will be no issues with any of our connections.

We’ll update again once we’ve arrived in Japan and have gotten some sleep.

 

Thank you all for your encouragement, gifts, and prayers.

Blessings,

Cameron and Meryl

Almost There

Hi, everyone! It’s been a while since our last update, but things are continuing to go well.

So far, there are eight pastors in eight different locations in Japan who have invited us to come visit them to talk about long-term ministry. Please continue to pray that the Lord would direct us to the place He would like us to eventually move to.

Six weeks is a pretty short time in which to visit eight churches, but as we continue working on the schedule, it looks like there should be enough time. Below is a photo of the location of each of the churches we plan to visit. We’ll be based centrally in Machida, but we’ll be traveling all the way up to the northern city of Hachinohe, and also as far south as Osaka. Four of the eight churches on our list are in the Tokyo area, very accessible to reach from Machida.

 

This past week, Meryl and I had the opportunity to attend the Calvary Chapel Missions Conference in Murrieta. It was a great time to fellowship and pray with other missionaries, as well as to hear of the reports of what God is doing in the lives of people all over the globe. Though many people are repenting and turning to Jesus throughout the World, there is still so much work to be done and such a tiny amount of workers in comparison to the task. However, the Lord is faithful and able, and He is adding to the church daily those who are being saved.

During the conference, we had the opportunity to meet and spend time with Kiyomasa and Taeko Akashi of Calvary Chapel Logos, Tokyo. The aspect that most stood out to us about them is this: though they have patiently persevered through much in ministry, they are still so full of joy! It really blessed us to see not only their faithfulness to persevere, but also this abounding joy that they express in that faithfulness; it is a contagious joy.

Attached below is a photo of the four of us. We will visit with them again once we head out to Japan.

 

Please continue to pray for our support. As for how that’s going, here’s a general breakdown of which of our main costs are covered or not yet covered:

• Our flight in and out of Japan (COVERED!)

• A place to stay for 41 days (COVERED!)

• Transportation for getting around Japan for 41 days (COVERED!)

• Food money for 41 days (not yet covered)

We estimate that we’ll need to raise about $1000 more in order to be at 100% coverage for this initial trip.

 

There are about seven weeks remaining until we fly to Japan. Here are some things we’d love prayer for:

• That the Lord would continue to prepare us and show us how to best prepare.

• That language-learning would continue to go well.

• That the Lord would go before us to prepare where He wants us to go; That he would open doors.

• That all our needed support would come in.

 

Thank you for your prayers and support 🙂

Love,

Cameron and Meryl

 

Booked!

We booked our tickets to Japan today! We will be flying out of San Diego on February 25th, staying in Japan until April 8th, giving us 41 days total.

We also found good and reputable accomodations at a great price (about $40 per night). It’s not a fancy hotel, but it’ll definitely meet our needs.

Over the last few months, funds have started growing through bake sales, through our own personal savings, and through your generous support! What was saved was enough to cover our flight and our lodging.

Our main expenses for the trip are:

• Our flight in and out of Japan (COVERED!)

• A place to stay for 41 days (COVERED!)

• Transportation for getting around Japan for 41 days (Not yet covered)

• Food money for 41 days (not yet covered)

 

We’re trusting the Lord to provide the remaining funds before we leave, and we’re excited to find out what He has in store for us when we get there.

 

Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

 

Love,

The Kendalls

Bake Sale Evangelism

We’ve been having some non-profit bake sales in town to raise support for the trip!

We set our table up in front of the old bank about once a week. Both locals and tourists have been interested in the sale, and we’ve been able to share quite a bit about Japan’s need for the Gospel.

For our first bake sale, we had the traditional lineup of cookies, brownies, and other sweets, but most of the people who stopped by were very health-conscious and didn’t want sweets. They still gave for the trip, but not many of our baked goods were taken. Since then, we’ve been making things with a lot less sugar (like homemade pretzels and lightly-carameled apples) so that people have some healthier options.

Our church also provides us with free bibles and tracts to hand out to passers by. Several people have taken them, and a few have briefly stopped to ask about the Lord and our faith in Him. It’s great to be able to share the Gospel here while also raising support to share the Gospel in Japan.

Please pray that the Lord would continue to provide the funds we need to be able to go to Japan, and pray for the people who come to our table each week, that the seeds that the Lord plants in their hearts will grow.