2018 has been a challenging year

Transcription

1 From: Rob and Christine Wright Subject: May 2018 update Date: May 28, 2018 at 8:20 PM To: Rob View this in your browser 2018 has been a challenging year Most of you are aware of the challenges we faced earlier this year, our son spending 16 days in the hospital battling a deadly bacterial infection which nearly took his life, Christine's father passing away during our son's hospital stay. Then on April 21st, the Lord called my dad, Bob Wright, home. It was a fall while gardening that suddenly took his life. I had been in Japan just over 2 weeks, when Christine, who was still stateside, called and gave me the news. I was saddened by the news, but rejoice in the hope that my dad was a Christian. I was also glad that we got to spend the last 7 months living 1/2 mile from my parents and spent a lot of time with them. When I left to come back to Japan, I gave my dad a hug, told him I loved him and will see him soon, never expecting that our next meeting will be in glory. So, just as soon as I thought I was back in Japan for a while, I found myself buying tickets to go to my dad's funeral. Christine arrived in Japan April 24th and I flew back to the states April 26th. My dad's funeral went well and I thank everyone who came to the funeral. I know it was a blessing to my whole family, especially my mom.

2 Moving As you know, I came back to Japan before Christine to take care of some business and arrange for movers. One piece of business was paying my Japanese income taxes. I had to go to the tax office and apologize for paying them late, as a result of my son's illness. They accepted my apology. Next I told them that I was only in Japan for 7 months in 2017 and I should only pay taxes for 7 months. That did not go over so well. Bottom line was that I had to pay taxes for the entire year. Oh well, God takes care of the details. Next, I was able to arrange movers for May 7th. Then my dad passed away and things were kind of a blur. I arrived back in Japan with three jet lagged days to finish packing. Somehow we finished the job and on the 7th we left our nice house in Tokorozawa. If anyone should want to be a missionary in Japan, there is currently a nice vacant mission owned home in Tokorozawa that would love to have you! Our next challenge came as we drove to Shingu. We left at 4:30 PM. Our intent was to drive a few hours, then sleep in a hotel. The hotel was a little off the beaten trail, so we let google maps direct us. We never have thought of using the "no ferries" option on google maps, but we should have. After driving on several small rural back roads, we get to the mouth of a bay, and google maps says, "next get on the ferry". What, are you kidding! It was 11PM at night, no ferry until 8AM the next morning. We had to meet our movers at 8:30AM at the new house. So, we ended up driving back around the bay. We stopped for a couple of hours at a rest stop so I could try to get some sleep. We arrived at our new house at 6:30AM. 14 hours in a small Japanese car, that is full of stuff from moving. Needless to say we were glad to get out. But, we made it to our little blue house, praise God. Our new address is: Shingu Shingu Shi, Wakayama Ken Postal Code Japan

3 Moving our queen bed from the roof of the moving truck in to our second floor bedroom. Classes The day after we arrived we began handing out flyers advertising our 'Kids Engilsh Classes' at the schools in Shingu and neighboring towns. The following week we had two evenings of orientation for parents. It was well attended. All the families that came, except maybe one, had never been in a church before. That is a big part of what we want to do, to introduce people to the church. We will start teaching classes on Tuesday, 5/29. We have 22 elementary students and 3 junior high school students. We will be teaching on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, roughly 4-9 PM. Each student comes for a one hour session each week. So our biggest class is about 6-8 students. Please pray for Christine and I as we start teaching these kids and begin to interact with their families. In addition to these classes we will have a once a month English Cafe. The English Cafe will be on a Sunday afternoon, on the same Sunday that I preach an English sermon. We had 7 adults at our first English Cafe. Spiritual Warfare We do not claim to be experts in this area, but a few things have occurred that may be spiritual warfare. One is a lady at church who we met last summer and was very excited to have

4 us come and work at her church. She is the only Christian in her family. The week we arrived she came to our house to greet us and brought us a welcome gift. Two days later her husband tells her that she is spending too much time at church and has now forbidden her to come to church. I know this sounds crazy to American ears, but here in Japan, it is normal. Especially with older couples, as in this case. Her plan is to honor his request and not come to church. Please pray that God's spirit will work in this family's life. The other issue has been both Christine and my health. Christine has not had any problems with vertigo since last November. But, last week she woke up one day dizzy with vertigo. She managed to lay low that day and it went away. As for me, I had not had any issues with my kidney stone since January. Recently, I have had two days of intense pain brought on by the kidney stone. Just before I left the states, I had a doctor appointment and he told me the kidney stone was about 2/3s the way out. He, nor I, know why it is taking so long to pass, but it is. Please continue to lift us up in prayer. Praise We have not given a Robby update for a while. Praise God that he is doing well. He came to Japan with Christine and will stay until the first week of June. He has most all his strength back. There are many hiking trails in the area where we live and Robby has been going on lots of hikes. We thank God for his recovery. He will go back to CA in June and work as an intern in a large accounting firm this summer and return to school in August.

5 At Nachi Falls. Thank you everyone! We could not be here in Japan without the love and support from all of you! Copyright 2018 Robert Wright /Converge Worldwide, All rights reserved. Thank you for wanting to keep up with our ministry to Japan. Our mailing address is: Robert Wright /Converge Worldwide 1174 Hampshire Place Santa Maria, California Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these s? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.