Dear church and family, thank you for all your prayers and support. We are getting ready 

 

for Christmas here in Japan and also it is getting very cold. Recently my sister and some 

 

church members went up to Minami Sanriku to deliver some warm clothes and did some 

 

Christmas parties where they shared about the Bible. We have quite a few Christmas 

 

events going on this month. Pray that people here will understand the true meaning of 

 

Christmas. My English classes are going good. God bless...

                           John Cathcart...

   Dear church family, thank you for all your prayers and support. Recently we have shown the movie

Passion which I believed laid the foundation for one of our church members that got saved this last

Sunday. Also there is another person who is asking a lot of questions about the Bible as well. Pray

that he may get saved. Getting cold here in Japan, but recently now have a stove to stay warm.

Classes are going well and the students are interested in the Bible lessons. God bless...

                                                     John Cathcart...

Dear church family, thank you for all your prayers and support. Things have been going well here. Seems like weekly our church is growing in numbers of people who come to attend. My dad is coming soon and he, Bethany and a friend of ours will be taking a trip up to Minami Sanriku. They will be going to see and witness to the people that were left homeless after the Tsunami. Our church on the 28th of this month will be showing the movie Passion. Please pray that many people will be touched after seeing the movie. We had a good service last Sunday, where Caleb shared this verse in the Bible. Psalms 103:2-5 "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-  who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's".  God bless...

                                             John Cathcart...

Hello from Japan. We just recently had a great youth camp last week. About fifty three youth showed up at the camp from seventeen different churches. It was a great time learning about servant hood and a time of refreshing and feeling God's presence. A lot of youth were dramatically impacted by the event. The church is doing well here. We had a good message from Caleb this last English service. Might be a chance I will get a new student to join my English classes. That may lead to others coming too. Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support for us. It is truly appreciated. There are great things happening. Pray for an upcoming youth volunteer excursion  to Minami Sanriku. The youth are going to volunteer their time for several days. We have a baptism for some youth in the church this Sunday. Keep them in your prayers. Thank you and God bless...

Still trying to get more students and survive the summer heat. Youth camp is coming up soon. So many members from the church will be attending that. We recently had a bowling outreach for the youth service. That was fun and we got to reach out to a young man. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. God bless...

Dear church family, thank you for all your prayers and support. Nothing much has been happening as of lately. We all are planning to meet each other as the Cathcart family soon. I finally passed my driver's test. So now I am able to drive in Japan. This gives me and Bethany freedom to travel to many places now. Please continue to pray for my friend and a pastor at the Ikoma Bible College who recently had a stroke. God bless...

                           John Cathcart

  Well, its a great time having all my family here. Getting my tracks for my English class passed out. It's still the rainy season in Japan. The church here is doing great. They are getting ready for their youth camp coming up. Thank you for all your prayers and support.

   Happiness

To be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made  the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God's out-of-doors--these are little guideposts on the footpath to peace.      ---Henry Van Dyke

We had a good service this last Sunday. A lot of youth got to hear the Gospel message and the meaning of life. Before that, we had an interesting scavenger hunt in one of the local shopping centers. Not much going on as of lately. Still trying to get my classes growing. My sister will come over with her family and visit with us about a week before going to Hokkaido. Hope all is going well there at Last Chance Chapel. Thank you for all your prayers and support.

                                                       John Cathcart...

 

 

Well, it's the rainy season in Japan now. Not much going on. Just trying to build up my classes and make contacts. I got a new student that recently joined my class. Hope he continually comes and get saved. I want to thank all the people back home for your continued prayers and support.

 Well, it is great to have our parents in Japan. There is nothing like having family together. We had a good church service last Sunday. My dad preached a good sermon. We got to bring along a friend of ours from Haibara who is seventy eight years old. It was her first time of going to church in her life. Hopefully she continues to come. We also had another friend come too to the church who is close to becoming a Christian. Slowly but surely our work here seems to be producing fruit. My classes are doing good. I hope that they will increase, so that more areas of Japan will be introduced to the Bible. I am also trying to find the secret of teaching, if possible. I am taking my driving test for the fourth time in Japan. Pray that it will be possible to pass. I want to thank the church family for all your prayers and support. It is truly a blessing to me and Bethany. God bless...

              John Cathcart...

 Well nothing much has happened lately. We had a Korean missionary to Iraq, came and spoke for us this Sunday. He can speak both his native tongue, English and Arabic. So that was interesting, but I could not understand the sermon. My classes are going good, the few ones that I do have. We have a English service this Sunday and I am going to share a little message in the morning service. We also have a outreach this Saturday where a church is presenting a choir group in front of the Tenri station. So I hope that will reach a lot of people. I want to thank my church family for all your prayers and support. God bless...

  Luke 2:46. The will of the Father. When Jesus said He must be about His Father's business, he was listening and asking questions in the temple among the teachers. He had not yet begun His ministry of preaching. Each of us have our own ways of ministering. Each of us have our own place of value. We have different giftings. We are not all the same. We have a difference about ourselves that makes us unique as an individual, but yet we all make up the same body. 1 Corinthians 12:14-26. We cannot do without each other. Even the hidden parts have even greater value. The ones that might not be seen or heard. the ones that might not look so comely or pleasing to look at. But each has it's own special function or role to play and it cannot be seperated from the body. Even Jesus had no comely form that we would desire Him, but yet He is what makes up the body. So everyone of us have value and a place of ministry that fits us whether it is seen or not and we all make up the body of Christ.

 Recently I been going through some trying times, trying to cope with the cultural differences between  America and Japan. But we had a good service on Sunday where a guest speaker spoke. He preached on how we are all foreigners set apart to be holy for God. Those who become Christians are different and become one family. So we don't have to be defined by the cultural differences from which country we

came from. We become a new race of people set apart to be holy for God. We have the Word of God
now describing what kind of people we are. So this was a comforting message to hear what I could understand of it, since it was mostly in Japanese. Afterwards we had our youth service at Family Koen Mae. A park where I used to go to when I was little. It was a good time of hanging out with the youth and playing sports. It was great to see so many youth smiling and enjoying themselves playing sports. And the weather was good too, since last time we could not do it because it was raining. 

 Well, I found some interesting scriptures from the Bible lately. It seems like my life is filled with trials, but reading from the Bible, it shows God has not only intended it to stay that way forever. Psalms 35:27 says "Let them shout for joy and be glad, Who favor my righteous cause; And let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant". And it goes on in Leviticus 26:3-4 saying "If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in it's season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit". Then after that it lists more blessings. So this shows that there are blessings to come following after the Lord, even though there seems to be many trials to reach that point. Though I always think how many times would the trials repeat themselves after every blessings you receive? I guess it doesn't end till we reach Heaven.

 Recently I met a friend of ours on the road. She befriended me and Bethany before. She likes mountain climbing even though she is old and has some physical problems. But she is amazingly strong to climb the mountain almost every day. Anyway I talked with her the other day over 10minutes in Japanese, I think. It was one of the longest conversations that I had. Difficult but yet rewarding to see what I could understand. It has been raining here in Haibara off and on. Getting ready to share from the Word this month at Lifesong church. I found out that my friend that I work out with, recently bought some whiskey and had some. So that was some discouraging news. I wish he can come back to church and get saved. I had a new student come to the Tuesday English class. It was a good time and we had several Christian ladies witnessing to the new student. Our neighbor came too class too, an old Christian friend of ours. Most of my students giving the new student their testimonies of how they met the Lord. Our neighbor is such a sweet lady and strong in the Lord. She gave me a ride home and kept repeating "Don't give up" about life, my driver's license, and my friend that I work out with. I would like to thank all for your prayers and support. Hope Last Chance Chapel is doing well. Remember not to give up when you see changes happening or everything seems to be so hard. Remember God will give His rain of blessings in due season.