Greetings Pallatt Prayer Partners!
I want to ask you to pray that the Lord would empower our staff in Japan with special grace to further Christ’s kingdom there.
Prosperity often results in apathy toward spiritual things and this is no less true in Japan. However, our staff report significant responses to the love of Christ and His truth. I’ll let Athlee tell you about their new outreach ministry called Café CO-EN. Mark & Athlee have served in Japan for many years.
Mark wanted more café friends to be interested in studying the Bible, and it is going to happen! Two part-time volunteers, Mika and Kaya, plus two friends and possibly two others will start English Bible classes with Mark next month. Only two are believers! One of them overheard the conversation about the Bible study and said, “Oh, do you have Bible studies here? Can I come, too?” Please pray for the new Bible class members, that they will come to know Jesus as their Savior.
Lately, some new people (believers) have come to Saturday night café worship looking for prayer and fellowship. One was a young lady named Aisa (I-sah), a Hokusei University student who has lupus and was hospitalized recently because it had started to affect her kidneys and she had gotten very weak. She was out of the hospital temporarily and came for fellowship. We all prayed for her and she went back to the hospital for more care. She really wants to go back to college and have a normal life but her body is still weak. Please pray for healing for Aisa and her growth in faith while she is in the hospital.
Another new person at café worship last week was Mr. Shinkai (Sheen-cah-ee). He is a widower whose wife died of breast cancer several years ago. Recently he was involved in a truck accident where he fell asleep at the wheel. No one was killed but he is awaiting a court decision from someone who was injured. He will accept whatever the ruling is because he was at fault. Life hasn’t been easy for him, as he is raising two kids alone, and his family business went bankrupt. Please pray for Shinkai, for God’s mercy and his growth in faith as he faces each day.
Follow-up Prayer Notes:
1. LifeSong Community Church - Final approval was given by the Town Council on March 18th to break ground on the first phase of the new facilities. The groundbreaking is scheduled for May18th. Pray for Pastor Lanny and the Penwell family that the Lord would open the door and show them their new ministry location. Pastor Lanny has been seeking the Lord about this for many months now after a very difficult decision last year to step down from ministry at LifeSong. I will be doing more when Pastor Lanny is no longer with us. Pray for me to balance all my responsibilities.
2. We are praising the Lord for His grace in allowing me to help our missionaries in two particular areas, 1) helping them to use our new expense reporting online system. This was first introduced last year and because of distances and some who didn't have their computers updated and also some didn't have the needed scanners to handle receipts, this has been and continues to be a great challenge. But by God's grace I am seeing good progress. 2) The second area I have spent a great deal of time on is with missionary payroll changes. Again, with our new accounting software and everyone going to individual accounts, there have been many complexities such as how we will handle rents and foreign taxes. These were often handled on the field with field funds; but now they need to be accounted for in the individual ministry accounts.
3. Aryls writes, “I’m back in Cebu and we have moved into the Mission Home. Actually, we are ‘camping out’ right now. My things are all in container van. The boat will leave Davao City Wednesday night to arrive in Cebu on Friday (May 2nd), I think. Pray that the boat will come on schedule so that we can unload the container on Saturday.”
FAMILY:
We are looking forward to being with Rebekah and Chas (Pastor Chas that is) and our two grandchildren, Charlie and Haddon in Mississippi for some vacation time in July. This will fall on the occasion of our second grandson, Haddon’s FIRST BIRTHDAY! We so love these opportunities to see them all.
Ryan continues to press on to complete his Graphic Arts degree at Valencia Community College in Orlando and has done so well. And ‘Praise the Lord’ is certainly appropriate in Roger’s life as, in the midst of an extremely depressed housing market, he has actually seen an increase in his work installing floor tile.
SUPPORT:
A very large THANK YOU to Grace Church of Mesa, Arizona and Pastor Sam Rotman and (Mrs.) Deborah Rotman! We were able to pay a visit to this supporting church back in March and they graciously gathered a special offering to help us with our on-going support deficit. This helped a great deal! We were also able to meet with Pastor John Garwick of Cornerstone EFC, Prescott, AZ and share with him for the first time.
Please ask the Lord in His grace, to move among His people to erase our ministry account deficit. It is critical that this be done soon. I will keep you posted… Please pray that our support would grow.
Again, thank you for your cheerful giving! (2 Cor. 9:7)
For your tax receipt, please mail your gift to: EFCA – Donor Services
901 E 78th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55420
Make your check payable to: Evangelical Free Church of America
Please note: Pallatt Support #1852
Your partners in Christ’s service,
Roy & Rita
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