Gracepoint Announcements » 2009

30 Hour Famine Results

jeanniebuilee — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:41:03 +0000

A message from our 30 Hour Famine coordinator:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for starving so that other may eat! I personally felt thankful that i can part-take in suffering in a little way, as Jesus gives out invitation to follow him daily! Hope you all had fun raising money for this good cause!

One last reminder: Please don’t forget to go into your personal donation page and print out the receipt for your total online donation amount. Please give this doc to your famine rep!

And for the final figure of how much we’ve raised so far this year:
http://www.gracepointonline.org/30hourfamine/Stats.html

Thank you for participating!

jeanniebuilee — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:42:04 +0000

If you missed out, be sure to order the DVD! As one who witnessed the dress rehearsal the night before and then saw the Saturday night performance, I can testify it was a miracle that everything came together the way it did! The children were right on cue (for the most part), and the performances were heart-warming, fun and inspiring! Our Joytown kids were a precious sight, the K-1st children memorized so many verses(!!), the 2nd-3rd graders solved the case of the missing manger and the 4th-5th graders learned an important lesson about thinking about others first. Praise God for the many ImpACT children’s parents and Angel Tree families who were able to attend to enjoy the night with us. I’m so thankful our children can experience THIS kind of event filled with so many memories and fun! Thank you to all the teachers, and all the helpers, from the teachers who labored nights and nights to write and perfect each skit line, to the sister who sewed the fairy godmother outfit, to the unnamed guy in black who did the soccer ball during the ninja scene, to the last guy out after everything was taken down (our Willard men). THANK YOU!

SWS in December

jeanniebuilee — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:36:52 +0000

Here is the schedule for Sunday’s in December!

12/13 willard normal schedule (1pm service)
12/20 willard normal schedule (1pm service)
12/27 northloop 1pm prayer meeting; 2pm service

Congregational Meeting & Prayer Meeting

jeanniebuilee — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:06:09 +0000

We will have our annual congregational meeting at 1st Presbyterian Church from 7-8:30pm on Tuesday, 12/15. Prayer meeting that night will be at 1st Presbyterian Church from 8:30-9:30pm.

Kim Family Prayer Update

jeanniebuilee — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:49:09 +0000

Dear Friends,

UPDATE: The students and faculty of Christ Bible Seminary had a wonderful retreat last week. Joe was able to lead a seminar on ‘Grace and Thanksgiving’ for all the students, and also spend more time getting to know them. Juliet has started part-time language school, and Isaiah’s yochien has started up again. Juliet has started meeting with a couple of the yochien mothers to begin an English book-reading/song time for Isaiah’s grade.

PRAYER/PRAISE:
1. Joe was able to meet with Dan Iverson (http://www.iversonjapan.com), the MTW country director for Japan. Dan and his wife have 9 children, and have been in Japan for 23 years. He gave us some good advice and said we should have only one goal for the first term: survival. This was wise advice, mainly because he was encouraging us not to bite off more than we could chew as foreign missionaries in a new land. We’ve been told several times, including by our MTW mentors, that we should take things slowly and learn as much as possible this term. Praise God for those who have gone before us to encourage those of us who are new here.

2. We recently had some new missionaries, the Wilson family, move to Nagoya from the Tokyo area. They have a son who is about the same age as Isaiah, and it was really great to be able to fellowship with them and see our children play together. For missionaries, having friends who speak our language and with whom we can share our lives with is so important. Please pray for the relationships among all those we serve with here in Nagoya, both for the CBI team and the Nagoya church planting team.

3. Please pray for Juliet and the yochien English book/song time that will begin in a month or so. This is a great opportunity to get to know the mothers and teachers better as well as spend more time with the children. Please pray for guidance in book and song selection.

4. This past weekend, Joe was able to attend a special day at Isaiah’s pre-school called Smile Day. All the fathers of the children go to experience what a typical day is like at their children’s school. It was really great to see so many fathers there, though there were several mothers who came in place of the fathers. Joe was able to meet the father of one of Isaiah’s new classmates. The father worked for Toyota in the USA for the last few years. Please pray that we can start building a relationship with this family for the gospel.

5. Please pray for Juliet’s language studies. She is going to Japanese language school twice a week. Please pray that her time will be maximized in studying Japanese. It is said that typically one needs 10,000 hours to attain native-level fluency in a foreign language. That’s 8 hours a day every day for nearly 4 years!

LINK OF THE WEEK:
Here are two testimonies by Japanese Christian women, sharing their hopes for the future and also for Japan. Although Japanese Christians are only a tiny, tiny fraction of the population (0.21% or so) their prayer is that God would start with those in the church to transform those outside:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiLKq9cQQMs

Praying with you for Jesus to be made famous here in Japan and throughout the world,

Joe, Juliet, Isaiah, and Evan

Taiwan Winter Mission Trip

jeanniebuilee — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:26:05 +0000

Taiwan – Christmas Celebration
Dates: December 18 to 28, 2009
Cost: $1,500

Participate in reaching out to college students by bringing them to the Christmas Celebration. We’ll meet students at the dining commons, at sports outreach and other activities. In addition, we will present the gospel through skits, music, and message at the Christmas Celebration.

The mission trip is a great opportunity to come out of your “comfort zone” as you meet and make new friends, and as you stretch yourself to be faithful to the various tasks assigned to you. You will also experience wonderful times of fellowship and spend time in God’s word through team meetings and daily devotions.

Costs:

Approximately $1,500. This includes airfare, room and board for the duration of the trip.

Application Process:

The signup deadline will be Tuesday, 10/13/09.

SIGN UP HERE

Christmas Celebration in Hsinchu

jeanniebuilee — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:33:43 +0000

Just got word that over 300 students attended the Christmas Celebration in Taiwan! Amazing answer to prayer. The program went well, and afterwards, they stayed to enjoy mingling and talking over snacks until past 10pm. Thank you for your prayers!

Interhigh Winter Camp

jeanniebuilee — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:16:59 +0000

Thank you very much for all your prayers for our very first InterHigh Camp. We had 20 non-element students. God answered our prayers in many ways. Despite the newcomers, their presence didn’t affect the atmosphere but the new comers quickly felt like one of our element members. The InterHigh students were a warm presence and grateful to be at the retreat. We had a campfire time where the students got to share what they were thankful for to the tune of “oh my lord, lord, lord…” from the movie Glory. It was moving to hear two of our InterHigh students share how thankful they were for the Interhigh retreat and the fact that the retreat was an encouraging time for them. It was moving to hear two of our Element students share how they didn’t want to come to the retreat initially. However, they loved the retreat and were thankful that they came. I know that the atmosphere and unity of the group was an answered prayer.

We had 5 people accept Christ, 6 people make lordship decisions & several made very significant rededications. Reading the students final retreat response sheets, it seems like many made significant decisions at this retreat. Please continue to pray for our youth and Inter High ministry especially as it’s vacation and school will start again for them. Pressure to fit in at school and academic/peer pressure causes many students to waiver in their faith/commitments. Pray that our students will continue to hold on to what they learned and DAILY seek God in His word.

Please also pray for the future of our InterHigh ministry. Pray that God will open doors for us to be able to better serve those youth who do not have a youth group or a youth pastor.
Thank you for all your prayers and your support!

New Year’s Eve Service

jeanniebuilee — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:51:36 +0000

For this year’s new year’s service, we wanted to give many of you a chance to share how you personally experienced God this past year.

Unlike the thanksgiving retreat where we focused on how God worked at and through our church, we wanted to focus on how YOU personally experience God i.e not focusing on our church, community, leaders and the peers. if you can focus on one area where you experienced God, it would be very helpful. here are some examples:

how you came to understand God’s love for you in a deeper way
how you came to realize that it’s unmerited grace of God and not what you can do (his unconditional love)
how you came to experience his Immanuel presence
how you came to experience his provision
how you came to experience his forgiveness and mercy
how you came to experience his long suffering love for you
how you overcame certain fears in your life
how you overcame some stronghold
how your God became much bigger
how you came to see God’s sovereignty over your life and the way he works
how you came to see that God is for you and not against you
how you obeyed some truth and experience God through it

Please email it to gracepointresponses@gmail.com by dec 29.

William Lane Craig Newsletter

jeanniebuilee — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:19:14 +0000

Merry Christmas! Attached you’ll find our December newsletter!

Wishing you a joyous Christmas and a fruitful New Year,

Bill & Jan