The Gomes Family is looking forward to an exciting and very busy year. It’s a blessing to see how everything and everyone grows.
Ruth, our youngest, will finish the Chogako (middle school) in March, and in April she begins a new stage in the Chugako (junior high school). She is rapidly picking up language skills as she proceeds studying Kanji and the spoken Nihongo. We share our overwhelming joy that our church is also growing with kids her own age, so that she can fellowship in Christ with them. Davi starts his senior year in an international high school. We are proud of his endurance and patience shown as he matures as a man of God. He loves to play his instruments (five of them), and he plays in church as part of the worship. We pray for guidance as he makes his decisions on this very important year of his life. Marcia stopped working at the school, and though financially stressing we opted for her to dedicate herself full time in the field. Her teaching position offered a good discount in Davi’s tuition as well as almost twenty per cent of our income, so please join us in prayers of gratitude, for we’ll have more time together, also in prayers as we depend our budget totally upon the Lord. Daniel spends his days in the preparation of studies, sermons, and lectures. Teaching English, discipling, counseling and the overall church activities take over most part of the day, approximately six hours. We are very thankful that in our very busy schedule we still find time to invest in our family, which is our first mission. One of the things that we are doing together is our workout routines. This year we are glad that Marcia ad Ruth also joined Danie and Davi’s jiu jitsu lessons.
Christ is Life Presbyterian Church gathered together during the holidays at the pastoral residence. Both Christmas and New Year's Eve were celebrated with a special dinner, shortly after a brief reflection by Pastor Daniel. On which occasion we numbered more than fifty people. We also exchanged Christmas gifts amongst ourselves.
The work continues every Sundays, at the CBI’s building in Nagoya, were we have our worship service and Sunday school. We now have three Japanese nationals attending the services and being counseled and discipled in Bible study and in our symbols of faith. For their understanding, we have included at least one song in Japanese during the service and publishing the WCF Instruction in Japanese in our Sunday’s bulletin. The entire service is simultaneously translated to Japanese.
The CBI staff and facilities have been really great to us, however at the rate we are growing in number, we feel the need to still search for our own location, where our project can go and grow even further.
We are very thankful for many prayers and suport of so many people we have not even met. If you ever come our east way be sure to stop by and be an eye witness to what the Lord is doing in us, and through us."
