Afureru!

We had an awesome Afureru! meeting today. You can see the new website here, www.afureru.org AND there are pictures if you follow the link to the blog. It is all written in Japanese, so just look for two rows of 4 pictures, and that was todays meeting!

Today was all for testimonies. We do this special kind of Afureru! about once or twice a year. It is always a blessing to hear about the work God is doing in peoples lives. I wish I could give you detailed versions of all the temionies shared, but I was too busy chasing around a 20 month old. Just know that God is doing great work!

Love from Japan,
The Ayatsuka's

Newsletter April 16, 2006

Today was a beautiful day! One of the most memorable Easters of my life.

Today at our church two people were baptized. Easter is the perfect Sunday for a baptism and it was so special that these two new believers had family and friends present to witness their baptism, many of whom have never been in church before. But today they heard and saw an illustration of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ throughout the service. It was so moving, I've been crying all day.

In our church here in Japan, on baptism Sunday, those being baptized share their testimony before the entire church during the worship service and then immediately after worship we have baptism. Today both testimonies were so touching!

Ken, the husband of one church member told of how he thought it was right to make it through life on your own strength and work hard. When his wife and children started attending church he was worried she might be getting into some strange cult. But then he was bombarded DAILY with stories about church from his wife and kids and eventually he wanted to see what this place was all about. He slowly began coming to events and then at one point just knew he wanted to make Jesus his Savior. He boldly stated at the end of his testimony that he wants to walk with Christ and be a witness from now on! WOW!!!

Naomi, a young lady whose been coming to church for a while now shared how she'd lost her mother to cancer. In Jesus Christ she found healing from the loss and from unforgiveness in her heart. I sat down the aisle from her father and watched as he cried through her testimony and then cried as he watched her being baptized! How amazing to watch a grown Japanese man cry like that. You could see the respect and love he had for his daughter in his eyes. I don't know for sure, but I imagine this was his first time in a church and possibly his first time to clearly hear the Gospel. Naomi's sister was there as well and was equally moved.

As I have thought about the power of Christ to change lives today, I've been unable to keep the tears from flowing. What a beautiful way to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord today. New life was abundant in our church this morning! Will you pray for those unbelievers who were there today. Pray that they will want to experience new life in Christ for themselves! And pray for all the believers, old and new that we would share the Gospel and more would come!!!

Praising Jesus because He LIVES!!!!!!!!!

Rocky, Marla and Hana

In the studio!!!

Thought you might like to see Rocky and Ai while they are in action upstairs in the studio! Things are moving along well. Ai will be here until the coming Wednesday! She is feeling a little like a cold is coming on, so please send up a prayer for her!





Ai will be getting married early next month! We are excited for her and praying God will use this CD to provide for her and her new husband, and give them a way to minister to many Japanese!

They call this a job?

One of the AWESOME things about ministry is that basically we get to play as we work a lot of the time. Ministering to people means spending time with them, and we do a lot of that. There are times that Rocky and I wonder if we are dreaming, this is often too much fun to be called a job! One recent "day on the job" was spent at the park doing what the Japanese call hanami (flower watching). It is cherry blossom season so everyone goes to the park to sit under the cherry blossom trees and eat, drink and sing karaoke! No joke, they bring their karaoke machines out to the park and go for it. Never mind that it is loud and obnoxious, it is hanami season and you're supposed to let loose, I guess! Anyways, we spent the day in the park too, it turned out to be a pretty cold day but it was fun none the less. Enjoy the pictures...


By the way, we brought a karaoke machine too! His name is Rocky!!! haha

Hana's favorite part was the SLIDE!

CyberWize

(I am new at this blogging and this post was inadvertantly added on this blog. It was meant for my personal blog! Sorry!)

A BIG PRAISE!!!

This company just keeps on growing on me! I got in only to help out Mom. My interest was peaked when we were in the states last year, and NOW I am a believer. Because of what happened today...

The products at CyberWize are amazing. I would have never known about this stuff if I hadn't been a part of this company. Tunguska Blast is so wonderful. I could go on and on about the benefits we see from it, and that our family and clients are seeing. But today it is another product that totally amazed me...

PSP+, is a Glyconutrient and it is supposed to help the body heal itself. Well a little over a month ago, Rocky had an eye check up and it was found that his eye pressure was pretty high. borderline I think they called it at 21. This was concerning because Rocky's brother lost his eye site to glaucoma, where the eye can't regulate it's internal pressure properly. Rocky had also been having headaches around his functioning eye pretty often. He started taking PSP not long after that, and today at his appointment his eye pressure was down to 16, well within normal range. AND he realize he has not been having headaches. You can not imagine how relieved I was.

I LOVE this company. It is helping us provide financially for our future and helping us get healthy, plus we get to help others to do the same. But it very well could be preserving my husband sight, and that is priceless!

Today was a GREAT day!
Marla

Newsletter April 4, 2006

Newsletter April 4, 2006

Praise God for all the amazing things he is doing around us, and for the many gifts he gives! I am especially thankful for Spring! It is so beautiful here in Japan, and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom this week.

News on the ministry front...

1. CMA is coming back to Japan!
2. Robynn is coming back to Japan!
3. Baptisms and new people at church!
4. Gospel Kitakyushu, internet radio ministry
5. CD production

As you can tell we are quite busy with many different things at the time. I will do my best to keep each topic as brief as possible, but God is doing so much and I don't want any of you to miss it!!!

1. You may remember that we had an incredible ministry of dancers come and do a concert last summer. CMA (Celebration Ministry of Arts) will be coming to Kitakyushu again this summer and we are so excited. This year, they will stay with us longer, and we plan to have a ministry dance workshop, a concert and a worship meeting for girls where the CMA team shares about "Purity". It is sure to be an incredible week, as last years concert was a huge hit! Check out this ministry's website... magnifythelord.org
2. My wonderful cousin Robynn will be back to spend time with us this coming summer also! She has a huge heart for missions to Japan and has been studying Japanese at University. We can't wait to have her here and toss her out there and see how much her Japanese has improved! ; )
   
   
3. Our church is doing so well right now. We have two baptisms coming up on Easter Sunday! One of those is the husband of a member, a first for our church and HUGE Praise! Pray that more husbands come to know Christ. How beautiful it is to see a FAMILY sitting in church together these days (other than our own of course, and the missionary couple that is planting our church). Also this past Sunday Rocky and I were overjoyed to pick up 3 young ladies and give them a ride to church. One young lady heard about us in New Zealand and is now living here in Kitakyushu and made contact with us through email. One other young lady is friends with a missionary couple who visited our church's cafe last week. She was at cafe to see them, and we offered to bring her to church anytime. We were so pleased to get a call from her asking us to come and get her, and telling us she was bringing a friend (pictured above left)! Pray that all of these young ladies continue to come and seek the Lord!
4. Rocky and two other pastors are hard at work recording monthly talk shows and various other radio shows for their online internet radio ministry called Gospel Kitakyushu. Check it out if you want to at goskita.net
5. And finally Rocky is in the studio beginning this week with Ai, a young Christian from our neighboring prefecture. Ai has written many of her own songs, and plays the piano! Pray for them as they record and for the Cd project as a whole! What an incredible blessing that we get to help young artists make their albums like this!

Hana has a blog too... www.hanas-place.blogspot.com New pictures from Cherry Blossoms this week!

Check back here often for news of our ministry and just stuff about us! We'll keep in touch...

Many blessings,

Marla, Rocky and Hana

Joining the masses...

These days it seems inevitable that if you are on the internet, you need a blog! So we have a blog now. This is where we'll post news and updates about us and the ministry. Hopefully you may find it more convenient than the email newsletter we send out, or our regular website, although we will still keep both of those active as well! So feel free to bookmark this and check back often. I will keep it updated regularly!

Marla