Hi! It’s Takeshi & Chie. We can’t thank you enough for remembering us in your prayer and supporting us in many ways!

Big Transitions in This Past November

We had such a hectic and heartbreaking time back in November… The biggest reason was that my (Takeshi’s) grandmother passed away. We got a call from my father one day and found out that my grandmother was in critical condition. So we hurried back home to Kanagawa. Thankfully she was conscious then, and we could talk with her a bit. We couldn’t stay with her too long because of work back in Nagano, and in the following week she passed away. It was sad to let her go, but what comforted my soul was the very last “yes” she gave me. I asked her to believe in Jesus, and she nodded… I am not sure if her last “nod” could be truly taken as her “confession” for salvation, but we want to believe it was…

We had a small farewell service for her with my immediate family and relatives, which left me feeling the bittersweetness. I miss her very much, and yet my father’s words to commemorate her and my uncle’s kindness warmed my heart.

Moving & Major Clean-up/Packing

This was another reason why we had such a crazy month! We shared with you in our previous newsletter a bit about this house we got a great deal on. The house owner agreed upon a cheaper monthly rent under one condition: Cleaning up all the belongings left in the house for all these times. This left us with two houses full of stuff to take care of at the same time: our previous place and this new place we’d move into! It is only a 10-minute drive between these two houses, but it felt like a never-ending move!! BUT GOD surely is GOOD! He had an idea in mind…

Great Help and Support from a Hawai’i Team

We got a call from Pastor Calvin in Hawai’i one day at the end of summer while we were harvesting zucchini. He told us about his plan on visiting Japan with his team in November. Back then we had never imagined what our November would have looked like, so we told them right away that we’d be happy to have them over. As we kindly asked if they might be able to help us with moving, cleaning, and packing, Pastor Calvin replied, “We’d be happy to!” We were so grateful. Looking back, it was God’s divine timing that the team came to visit during this time because we couldn’t have gotten our moving done without their help for sure!
We actually had no idea who would be in the team before they arrived. And what surprised us was that all the team members were older than us! This left us thinking that they should just take it easy so they wouldn’t get hurt or anything in the moving process, to be honest…

BUT they proved us wrong!! They were such an energetic and amazing bunch of helpers full of great wisdom and life-experiences and made our new place nice and clean before we knew it!! Thanks to their hard work, we even got to invite some of our friends over to our new place to have a dinner party with the team the day before we sent them back to Hawai’i.

They totally helped us with laying the foundation for us to have our place ready for our future home church. We are so grateful for this Kingdom family and the time we spent together as they rolled up their sleeves and did the job that not many people would want to do. They are already planning to come back in 2023, and we are looking forward to seeing them again!

Continuous Support Sent from God

God also sent Chie’s parents to help us transition. My (Chie’s) father is an electrician and has worked on an installment and maintenance for the electricity at this co-working space, “Sankaku no Ie”; we use this place for our cafe and community events. There we could help him with his work, and he helped us back by dismantling furniture as we moved. It was a big help! My (Chie’s) mom also came with my dad and taught me how to cook a Japanese traditional side dish and prepared for lunch and dinner while they were here. What a blessing!

Our Very First Winter in Nagano

We are writing this newsletter at the end of December (2022) and are in the midst of experiencing our first winter in this region. IT IS FREEZING! It’s fun to see snow, but we don’t get to work on the farm when it snows so much and the soils freeze as the temperature goes down. We have been experiencing at first hand this is what working as farmers is like during the winter season; It’s been challenging for us financially. We have been able to open our cafe at different events, but it’s held outside. Geez, it’s freezing cold…!! Wait for our next update to see if we are still hanging after this torturing winter season (LOL)!

Hibernate, Not!

We can’t deny the coldness here, but we’ll stop complaining!! And we’d rather do things we can think of during the season. We are planning to do the followings:

⓵ Preparing our house for our future home church:

We still have lots to do for a clean-up and renovation at our new place even though the Hawaii Team helped us a lot. We need to do something about so many things our previous house owners left untouched. We will use this season to make our house a better place.

⓶ Preparing for an Electrician licensing exam:

You might be thinking, “For what?” But Chie’s father has been working as an electrician himself and has given us some opportunities to help him. Takeshi seems to like the job and is willing to get an electrician license for future job opportunities. He has begun to study for the exam.

⓷ Preparing to work as a ski instructor:

Someone we know gave us a job offer to work part-time as ski instructors in a nearby ski resort! Chie has skied when she was little, so she would probably be able to teach kids how to ski. But Takeshi has no skiing experience whatsoever for the entire lifetime and has been practicing so that we could take the offer next winter!

⓸ Preparing for a fundraiser:

We are thinking of raising some funds by selling our home-roasted coffee beans. Due to the decreasing work time on the farm during the winter, we have ended up using some of our own savings for purchasing a coffee bean roaster. We could possibly prepare a limited amount of coffee beans each time. But if you’re interested in supporting our ministry and tasting our roasted coffee, please contact us!

Our winter season here lasts very long, but we’re doing the best we can to prepare for our next season. The following are our prayer requests. Thank you again for always remembering us!

Please pray for:

• our health during the cold winter season: We have some problems with our fingers and arms. Our first harvest season was physically hard on our bodies, and we have some symptoms of a possibly trigger finger. Please pray for God’s healing touch;

• God’s wisdom and guidance to see whether or not we would join a church planting network;

• opportunities to start building good relationships with our new neighbors.

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