By Jayne Terasawa

I honestly didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to teach a class for Adventure Week. I had never served in this particular ministry before and was unfamiliar with what it entailed. Furthermore, speaking in front of people is not one of my strong points, and the topic I was being asked to teach on was hospitality, something I’m certainly no expert in. So, truth be told, I considered myself a rather ill-equipped choice. But I said yes to the invitation, because hospitality is something that I am seeking to grow in, and because I felt that gentle push from God to accept this opportunity. 

Here’s what I learned from the experience: 

Adventure Week allows kids to learn about the heart of serving others and to apply what they’ve learned in tangible ways by blessing different groups of guests through different types of service. Four different classes combine their efforts to this end, and every child who attends Adventure Week gets to experience each class, contributing in a new way each day. Guests are welcomed and hosted by the hospitality class, treated to a lunch made by the cooking class, receive handmade gifts from the crafts class, and after lunch return to clean cars, courtesy of the car wash class. It’s a multi-faceted event that allows the participants to serve in a variety of ways, both tangible (preparing a meal, washing a car, giving a gift) and relational (having a conversation, serving a guest, getting to know a new friend). 

The theme for this year’s Adventure Week was “We are Ohana, We are One!” Each day, before jumping into the flurry of activities, everyone met as “family” to worship together and receive exhortation from Pastor Victor and the skit team. It was a time to be reminded of what it means to be called to life together as we love and serve the body of Christ. 

In a world that is so focused on the self and on gratifying our own desires, we desperately need to be reminded of the calling that we have to walk in the footsteps of Jesus: we are to “do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind [we are to] regard one another as more important than [ourselves…], not merely [looking] out for [our] own personal interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). This can take on the form of cooking a meal, striking up a conversation, creating a thoughtful gift, cleaning up a car...or it might look like something else entirely. 

The things that stop us from serving others can also take on many forms. For me, one of the greatest challenges is my struggle with perfectionism and my tendency to focus on what I can’t do rather than on what God can do through me if I’m willing. I think about how I’m too introverted, or how my schedule is too busy or my house feels chaotic, or about that time I tried reaching out to someone, and it didn’t go well. Maybe I regret the times I knew I should have struck up that conversation or extended that spontaneous invitation or made that phone call and didn’t, missing a moment that God may have given me to bless someone else. And so I talk myself out of future opportunities because I feel either too ill-equipped in the moment or too discouraged by the past to move ahead. But this is when I need to remind myself that it’s not about me. The goal of lovingly serving others is not to execute things perfectly. The goal is to have a heart of humility that is willing to take steps of obedience in response to God’s calling. 

And this is what I love about Adventure Week: the focus is not on tangible acts of service alone, but on having a heart that is being shaped by and modeled after Jesus’ heart, a heart of compassion that sees the needs of others and is motivated by love to act. A heart that makes God (not our weaknesses or limitations) the focus. A heart that is open to serving in whatever way God calls.

By Hailey Wada

You may be wondering, “So what in the world is this team going to do in Japan anyway? And why in the world are they going?”

Well, to answer the first part of this question, WHAT we’ll be doing is pretty straight-forward. We’re going to be joining in Sabrina Yee’s (she’s one of Evergreen’s full-time missionaries) daily life and ministries in Minamata, Japan. We’re planning to lead an hour of her church’s Sunday service, throw her congregation a California-themed party, teach six different hour-long English classes, be a part of small groups at a youth camp, and perform some skits.

But in regard to WHY our church decided to send a team to Minamata, our goal is actually so much more than just doing things next to Sabrina. WHY we’re going is loaded with different reasons. To begin, we want to better understand:

• The struggle of living in a foreign country without unintentionally crossing any unsaid, cultural rules

• How to get to know people without understanding the same primary language

• The patience required to get a group of rowdy pre-K children to pay attention and to prompt self-conscious high schoolers to speak up during English class

• How to try and be engaged in a small group without having the slightest idea of what the small group members are sharing

In short, we want to experience what our sister Sabrina goes through every single day. 

Don’t get me wrong–  the Lord has blessed Sabrina immensely during her time in Japan. Praise the Lord for that! But that doesn’t mean that her life has suddenly turned into an eternally cutesy, cheerful anime. There are still trials and frustrations the Lord has allowed in her life since booking a one-way ticket to Japan on September 12th, 2016.

So for a moment here, let’s be real: It’s not easy to leave behind a church family you love and hold dearly in your heart. It’s not easy to navigate a flurry of confusing, unsaid cultural boundaries that you never even knew about before. And it’s definitely not easy to know that you’ve been called to live in this foreign country for, as far as you know, the rest of your life. 

Sabrina shared in her June newsletter that the average time it takes for North American missionaries to have “a sense of feeling at home, or feeling comfortable” in their new country is 18-20 months. Asian Access (Sabrina’s sending agency) reported, however, that in Japan, that average adjustment period shoots up to 7.8 years! That is quite a long time (but on the bright side, at least according to that statistic, Sabrina’s only got 4.8 years left to go!). In these roughly 7.8 years needed for Sabrina to feel a sense of home and comfortability in Japan, our church has seen all the more reason to send a team to visit our faithful missionary and encourage her in the Lord. 

That’s where we come in! When Pastor Victor called us together for our first meeting, he gave us handouts and folders that explained that this trip is a unique opportunity to experience and better understand what Sabrina goes through every day as she ministers the Gospel to the people of Japan. Pastor Victor wrote that our trip “thus reflects the ministry of Barnabus, who was sent by the church in Jerusalem to see the ministry in Antioch”:

“When he [Barnabus] came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast grace.” (Acts 11:23)

So WHY are we going to Japan?

We’re going to Japan because, as her good friends, we want to hug, pray with, listen to, and support her. We want to spend time and do ministry with our beloved missionary who just might need some encouragement in the ~4.8 years left before she feels at home in Japan.

And most of all, we’re there to remind Sabrina that God Himself has called her to serve the people of Japan, and that in light of eternity with Christ, she will never regret the years she’s dedicated to pouring herself out for the Lord again and again.

Our flight for Japan is on August 2nd  at 1am. If you’d like to receive updates on how to pray for us while we’re serving with Sabrina in Minamata city, please subscribe to our blog site at minamata2019.blogspot.com. Arigato gozaimasu!

by Rickie Miyake

So how are you all doing with the recent changes taking place from our transition to Pastor Rocky from Pastor Cory? For example, having a combined service instead of the 8:00 and 11:00 services...

Here’s a quiz for you:

You used to attend the 8:00 service. As you walk into the sanctuary for the new combined service, horror of horrors, there is someone sitting in your regular seat! Do you:

(a)  Let the offending party know that they are in your seat, emphasizing that this is causing you to stumble. Let that sink in by paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 8:13 - if sitting in my brother’s seat causes him to stumble, I shall never sit in that seat again.

(b)  Acknowledge that perhaps the person in your seat normally sits there for the 11:00 service but you are accustomed to sitting there at 8:00. Offer the noble solution of role playing, allowing him to be Abraham and you be Lot, as you replay Genesis 13:8-9. Tell him, “Let’s not have any quarreling between us because we are brothers. Is not this seat before us? Let us decide who sits in it. As Abraham (you) told Lot (me), if you decide to sit in this chair then I shall seek a chair elsewhere or if you go elsewhere I shall sit in this chair. Well, I choose this chair. As for you, there’s some good seats over there.”

(c)   Let the person in the chair know that both of you want to sit in that same chair and then suggest using the wisdom of Solomon as written in 1 Kings 3 to decide. Tell him, “How about we cut the chair in two?” Then wait for the other person to offer you the chair because he cares about it and doesn’t want it to be damaged.

(d)  Graciously greet your brother and introduce yourself if you don’t already know him and then find another seat. As long as you can hear the Word, all the seats are great.

Okay, you know I’m just clowning around but I think we all have to admit we do get into our comfort zones and sometimes change bends us out of shape. We settle into a routine and then change takes place and yanks us out. Life is one big cycle of them.

A couple thousand years ago, Jesus Christ walked this earth and represented change. Many initially embraced Him for the miracles and healings He performed, but then rejected Him because He took them out of their comfort zones by the things He called them to do. The thing is, the change He represented was really the fulfillment of Scripture, the Messiah to whom it had pointed to since the beginning. The entire Bible is about Him!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. - John 1:1

But the people had settled into their routines and didn’t recognize Him. Then when Jesus was crucified and then resurrected, it was a huge change for those who had followed Him, there was much mourning because their Lord was now in their eyes, forever gone. None expected Him back despite what Jesus had told them. When He appeared, His disciples and Mary Magdalene initially didn’t recognize Him because they had taken their eyes off the Living Word.

It’s so easy to let change distract us, disturbing our focus and our minds begin to wander. Having two services was so much more convenient. It’s so dark in the Sanctuary I can hardly see. Shouldn’t the pastor who delivers the sermon also deliver the benediction? Those are some thoughts that ran through my mind during the post-Pastor Cory services, along with comparing Pastor Rocky’s style to that of Pastor Cory, and contrasting the new stage background to the old. I found myself having to get back on track and pay attention to the message.

Reflecting, I realize regardless of what’s changed with the form of our services and church structure, I am thankful that the substance has remained constant, which is to seek and focus on the truth. It was and still is all about Jesus, and all about the Word. The enemy would love to derail you and me from this but we must persevere to maintain our focus on Him who is our rock and foundation.

1 John 1:1 refers to Jesus as the “Word of life.” While He is manifested in different forms throughout the Bible, the substance is always the same! And the truth of the Word being preached each Sunday morning from the pulpit is the same on the left side of the sanctuary as it is on the right, front or rear, i.e., in every seat, amen? Amen!

By Pastor Dan Christian

The day has come. Pastor Cory’s countdown app has reached zero. He is now retired. Pastor Rocky has received the mantle of leadership and is now our senior pastor. A new season in the life of Evergreen SGV has begun!

Pastor Cory has worked very intentionally for many years to prepare us as a church family for this momentous change. So now that the change has arrived, how are we to live?

We are to keep on practicing what we’ve already been doing throughout this whole transition process.

We are to keep on remembering the goal of transformation. We are to keep on praying for wisdom. We are to keep on lamenting the losses, starting small, and holding on to hope. We are to keep on showing up, and keep on maintaining perspective. Keep on practicing what we’ve already been doing.

The athlete who has practiced diligently and constantly will be able to play in such a way in the game as to almost make it look easy. And in fact, for that athlete, it is easy. The skills in and of themselves may be quite complex and difficult, but the constant practice has made them second nature to the athlete. Thus even in a high stakes game, they can perform flawlessly if they simply do the same things that they have been practicing over and over.  

Driving a car is the same dynamic. When you were learning to drive, you had to think about every little move and rule and road sign. But now, if you’ve been driving for any length of time, you don’t think much at all about how to maneuver the car—you just do it. Your body has developed muscle memory for all the steps involved in driving, so at that point it really is easy—you just keep practicing what you’ve already been doing.

So how are we to live, now that this major change has come? If we have practiced well over the past two years of preparation, then walking through this change could actually be easy, even though the things that come our way in this new season may be quite complex or difficult in and of themselves. But when we keep practicing the same habits we’ve already been developing, we can walk with confidence and competence through the changes.

Hebrews 12:11 speaks of discipline primarily as training, not just punishment, and says that in time, all discipline “yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Our new season does not have to be highly stressful, but in fact can be peaceful and fruitful, when we keep practicing the habits we’ve been learning—habits of looking to Christ and trusting in Him. Then we will truly be like the tree planted by streams of water, whose leaf does not wither, and in whatever we do, we prosper (see Psalm 1:3).

Thriving in transition happens as we put into practice, day after day, habits of reliance on God and interdependence within the family of God. So keep on practicing!

“Wisdom is with aged men,
with long life is understanding.”  Job 12:12

Please remember: 

Faith and Family First.

The Bible is trustworthy and without error.

God always answers prayer.

Love God, Love Others. Make a difference. 

We are blessed to be a blessing.

We cannot out-give God.

God measures success by the yardstick of faithfulness. 

God loves you and so do I.

Some things to think about…