In Community:

November 2019 Newsletter

When Bad Things Happen

By Pastor Craig Swanson

Last month, I wrote a Grapevine article while waiting at SeaTac Airport to head to Japan for a conference at Japan King’s Garden.  While in Japan, we saw new facilities that continue to be added to the JKG network, met many full-of-faith leaders and heard amazing stories of God’s power and goodness demonstrated through their care for the elderly, handicapped and orphaned – what society refers to as the “least of these”.  My reaction was that “God is truly in and working through this amazing ministry”.

But less than two weeks after our return, torrential rains associated with the most devastating typhoon in decades, inundated the Kanto region of Japan.  Rivers spilled over their banks and caused extensive flooding.  The JKG skilled nursing facility in Kawagoe was overwhelmed with water, reaching the ceilings of the first floor.  All residents were safely evacuated before the flooding began but the damage to facilities, equipment and records was severe.  Many people have been asking, “How can something like this happen to a ministry so blessed by God?” or “Why didn’t God protect these people and this facility?”.

These questions spring from our misunderstanding of blessings.  We assume that a blessed life is a life free from problems and if problems do arise, that we somehow have stepped out of God’s will.  But that is not the case.  Jesus told His disciples that “in this world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33).  Trials do not indicate that we have been abandoned by God.  On the contrary, James tells us to “consider it pure joy when we encounter trials of various kinds” (1:2).  The Apostle Paul, after years of effective ministry, found himself imprisoned because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  When writing to the Philippian Church, he reminds them, “that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel” (Phil. 1:12).

Through trials and suffering, God continues to work and display His glory.  Volunteers from around Japan have traveled to Kawagoe to assist in the recovery efforts.  National news reports have highlighted the work of the King’s Garden ministry.  People from around the world – including us at FBC – are contributing to the financial needs of the organization.  Is it difficult for everyone involved?  Yes.  Is God present in the midst of these difficulties?  Again, yes.  And as we each do our part, with an attitude of thankfulness and joy, the trials will eventually pass and God’s glory will be seen by many.

Maize Maze Madness: ROCK (High School)

By Amy Li

I had a good chuckle to myself as I read my report of last year’s corn maze event. To give you a quick recap of last year, it was a dark, wet, and cold night as we slipped and slid through a muddy maze. To my surprise though, the “adults” probably had worse attitudes compared to the students and we enjoyed an extreme bonding experience to say the least.

Fast forward to this year, God truly blessed us with a beautiful, bright, sunny autumn day. Really, it was picture perfect. Maybe anything would have been better than last year. Maybe we were being rewarded for enduring the storm, literally, last year. But regardless of the reason, we were beyond thankful to God!

We headed to the corn maze after Sunday service, but we spent a good thirty minutes just trying to decide where to eat lunch. After lots of indecisive back-and-forth discussion, we ended up at Wendy’s to stay within a high school student’s budget. Honestly, even the snooty fast food critics (the “adults”) had to admit the food was pretty good for the price.

Once we were fueled up, we drove out to Bob’s Corn & Pumpkin Farm in Snohomish, WA, got lost on the farm grounds (we weren’t even in the maze yet…), dropped off our items and took a tractor hay ride to the starting point. After going through half of the maze without much trouble, we took a detour to our own private bonfire area and we feasted on hot dogs, s’mores, kettle corn, and hot chocolate. In such striking contrast to last year, we were sweating around the sweltering fire, trying to stick around the flame long enough to just barely cook our sausages and melt our marshmallows. With our bellies back to full again, we finished the corn maze and rewarded ourselves with more food: garlic butter corn-on-the-cob!

I am thankful for simple fellowship events like this one and am always deeply encouraged by each of the students in this group. May God continue to bring us closer and deeper into relationship with Him and with each other, as we learn to reflect His love both within and outside of this beautiful community that He has gifted us with.

Corn Maze: WASABI (Middle School)

By Linda Takano

Our first WASABI middle school meeting of the year was a planned trip to a local corn maze. However, we got off to a rocky start with the leaders waiting for the parents at one entrance and the parents waiting for the leaders at a different entrance. Neither party could get to the other without paying and we didn’t know for sure where the other ones were. Finding each other was more difficult than the actual corn maze! Just kidding. Over an hour into the maze, none of us made it more than a few yards from the entrance. The maze was way, way more difficult.

The maze event really did its job, though, of being the ultimate icebreaker. We had 13 middle schoolers, nine of them being 6th graders. Divided into three groups, we tried to conquer the maze with people we didn’t really know very well. We generally let the kids decide which way to go at every turn, so they’d talk and decide amongst themselves. We tried all kinds of strategies to get through including: keeping your right hand on the corn at all times, refusing to use a map and instead going on instinct alone, sketching arrows into the ground with fallen corn, even trying to take shortcuts. None of that worked. It’s true what no one says: getting lost as a group really brings you together.

2019 Fall Conference

By Pastor Mike Kurtz

Fall Conference 2019 Video by Daniel Mayeda

“…but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13)

A beautiful fall weekend talking about God’s love and our love for others, and then sharing that love over fun and food and fellowship – it doesn’t get much better than that! With an unprecedented number of attendees this year, the vibe was energetic.

Beginning Saturday morning, people started trickling into the camp around 9am. Aaron and Kathy Nishimura and Alane Louie did their best to keep up with the flow of registrations and room assignments. Marsha Crawford and Carrie Ishimitsu set up a nice continental breakfast spread for those waiting for the first session to begin. (Thank you all for all the work both before and during the conference.) With the first session beginning at 10am, the kids were rushed down the hill to their meeting rooms where the Lau family was waiting to begin a fun day of learning and playing. The youth headed over to the Mt. Si meeting space, while the rest of the attendees stayed up at the lodge for their sessions.

English Camp

The speakers this year were Bob and Noby Kennell, member missionaries that were sent out decades ago to Papua New Guinea and later to Thailand. Their sessions on God’s love in the family, in the church, and to the world was relevant and challenging. Questions for the small groups from each session reveal the take-aways:

• What are practical ways to show that we love the Lord our God with ALL our heart, mind, soul, and strength?
• What are things in our lives that keep us from loving the Lord our God with ALL our heart, mind, soul, and strength?
• What are practical ways to demonstrate my love for God by loving my spouse or members of my family?
• How does a disciple of Jesus love one another . . . specifically in our FBC family?
• If you were a visitor to a new church what things would you look for? What should a visitor to FBC see and experience that would bring them back?
• What are positive ways you feel Faith Bible Church shows the love of God to one another?
• How can we extend friendship by loving outside of our circle of close friends?
• What is our responsibility as an ambassador for Jesus Christ?
• Like the Good Samaritan, how can we show God’s love to those in need? – not just the homeless person but anyone in need?
• Why should we share God’s love to those who do not know of His love?
• Why is it so difficult to share the message of salvation and why are we hesitant to share our faith with others?
• Can you think of one person that God would have you to share His love with?

As each small group discussed these questions, it was clear that these are questions we must continue to ask ourselves (and part of the reason I include them here). Let’s continue to branch out and take a loving interest in people as we fulfill God’s greatest command to love God and others.

Family Night

One of the goals of our annual Fall Conferences is to help connect one another in our family of God. To help accomplish this, Saturday night was a time when everyone from the different camps came together as one. The time was opened with worship, followed by an icebreaker (remember your animal calls?) to form teams. Danny Cohen and Watson Louie led a series of “minute-to-win-it” games in which everyone was encouraged to participate through support of their teammates and the actual playing of the game. Words cannot express the excitement of each game, and I can only point to the pictures to help here. In the end, it was a great time of fun and laughter as a church family. The evening closed with people sharing free time together around games, firepits, etc. We trust people made new friends that weekend.

Fall Conference: JLM

By Mina Chen

The theme of the fall conference for Japanese Language Ministries (JLM) was “God’s family” and we had Pastor Jonathan Kobayashi from Eikou Christian Church as our speaker.  He shared about being a healthy family as a church.

The first key to becoming a spiritually healthy family is the individual’s spiritual health, to know who God is with our heart and know who we are in Christ.  Pastor Kobayashi challenged us to remain in Christ through worship, thanksgiving, the Word, and prayer.

The second key to becoming a healthy family is to have outward-focused missions.  We become a spiritually healthy family when we go outside our family and work together to make disciples, just as in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).  Matthew 22:39 says that God’s calling on us is to love our neighbors as ourselves.  In our culture, it might be easier to love our neighbors than love and care for ourselves.  We might hesitate to ask for help because we don’t want to be a burden to other people.  However, when we are open about our need for help, it brings opportunities for others to help and show God’s love in action.

Our dear sister in Christ became ill around the time of fall conference and needed help with meals and their children.  I was amazed how quickly the meal sign up became full and how much more FBC Ohana (family in Hawaiian) offered to help this family.  This is an example of God’s love shared through our practical needs and when we love each other like this, non-believers see God’s love and presence.

The third key to becoming a healthy family is to support and help each other for God’s calling.  God called us to love God by loving one another.  When we as a church work together for God’s calling, our love for each other deepens.  Just like Paul had many partners to share the Gospel with others, when we work on a mission from God, we need each other.  Pastor Kobayashi listed three categories of verses that have “each other (tagai-ni).” The categories are 1) unity, 2) love, and 3) a humble attitude. As we unite together, humble ourselves, love one another, focus on our big mission and remain faithful to the calling that God has given to us, I believe God will continue to do amazing things through us, God’s family.

Fall Conference: Youth

by Amy Li and Linda Takano

ROCK (High School)

This year, we had a total of twenty-five youth students attend Fall Conference from both the middle school (WASABI) and high school (ROCK) groups. With a group that size, we needed lots of leaders. Aaron and Kathy Nishimura, Josh and Linda Takano, Kenji and Jeanne Kumai, Lynn and Marty Dong, Chris Jo, El Iseri, and I rose to the task.

We are so thankful for Marty, who served as our youth speaker, even after a week of battling a cold. Marty spoke on what the Bible teaches us about loving others and practical ways to live out this call to love. He kept things interactive as we discovered our own personality types and individual love languages and wrapped it all up with how our source and strength to love others comes from God’s love for us.

Other activities included snacking to our hearts’ (and stomachs’) content with an overflowing snack table thanks to our generous families. During free time, the ROCKers naturally wanted to hang out together and that makes my life easy. They have found community within this group of peers and for that I am thankful. We played volleyball, basketball, gaga-ball, and gutter-ball. Most of us, except… ahem, Kulani and Chris Jo…, even climbed up to a 40-foot platform and enjoyed a short but exhilarating trip down the zip-line. Nathan C. gave a valiant effort in teaching us how to play “Two Rooms and a Boom” in our chaotic common space. Kulani C. also led us in a game of “Monikers” that took way longer than we thought it would but was still a lot of fun. We also brought back a crowd-favorite, “Four on a Couch”, which is always sure to get our competitive blood pumping and our minds boggling.

All of that by itself is reason enough to praise God for another “successful” year but what really blew me away were the conversations that were had with the students over the span of those two days. Real heart-stirring and thought-provoking discussions after both Saturday sessions that reveal how much they are truly seeking. On top of that, a couple of students who stayed up on Saturday night wanted to have a “deep talk” so they just pulled the chairs into a circle in the common space and willed it to happen at 1 AM. Without disclosing too much, all I can say is that I was extremely blessed by how transparent, open and willing they were to share, even with the “adults” (Chris Jo, El, and I) present, but not necessarily awake. They desire to ask the hard questions and wrestle with true belief and faith in God.

FBC Family! Please continue to pray for the students to experience God in ways that would move them to believe with their heart, soul, and mind in the God who loves and cares for them. Please also pray for us leaders as we discern how to best guide, teach, and encourage each student.

WASABI (Middle School)

For the majority of our middle school students, this was their first time being part of the Fall Conference Youth Camp – moving up from the kids program this fall. Our middle schoolers got to play icebreaker games, sing with the youth-led worship and listen to messages from Marty Dong that were delivered in a relatable way. Marty’s messages on love were seemingly simple, but challenging for all of us youth and adults too.

As a group of mostly new 6th graders, we were also encouraged to see them become closer. They took up two whole dining tables at the retreat. And for the past few weeks, they’ve been sitting together at church. (P.S. If they are too restless during service, please feel free to gently shush them. Sorry – we’re working on it!)  While these might seem like small things, it is part of what we as leaders have been praying for. Community building, making personal connections, giving/getting encouragement from peers… overall, learning what it is to become part of the body of Christ right here at FBC.

Thanks to the ROCK leaders who took care of all of the organizing for the entire youth camp. Thank you to the parents to have entrusted us with your middle schoolers and provided snacks. And finally, we appreciate Marty Dong, who was engaging, inspired and organized – giving us his best even though he was feeling ill. God is so good.