"Haisai Dushigwa!" (What's Up Friends! in Okinawa Dialect)    from Uruma City, Gushikawa, Okinawa, Japan

Praise reports!   October, November, December has been an incredible time for Hope Chapel Gushikawa.  The Lord has been truly blessing us.   On October 28th, we had a Halloween Party for the community.  We held it at our local neighborhood community center.  We were blessed to have the Quintero’s dance a Panamanian dance from Gospel of the Cross foursquare church.  We had our own Kelly Frasco dance hula and the Kawabata family sang “Every Breath I Take” in Japanese. We had games and we sang Amazing Grace at the end of the night.  It was a great time celebrating life rather than the dead during Halloween.  We saw 70 people gather on this night.  We believe that this will be an annual event for our community which will only get better and better!  Thank you to the Kihara’s, Aunty Sandy, Calee and Amante (The HCK crew in sending prizes that we gave away that just blessed so many!)
On October 30th, we saw two of our members be water baptized!  It was cold and windy, but the Lord certainly blessed our day.  Praise God!
	November 19th-20th we had our first ever Nambu District Single’s camp.  Thirty people from seven different churches were represented at the camp.  It was an incredible time!  The theme was “Yes, Jesus!”  Many lives were touched and changed by the power of Jesus Christ at the camp.  Toguchi san and Regina shared their testimony about dating and getting married as Christians.  On the last day, we had incredible testimonies where people shared how they were touched by Jesus!  This camp was a beginning of more things to come for the Nambu District singles and youth!  Thank you for your prayers.
On December 23rd, Hope Chapel Gushi joined up with our neighbors Joy Chapel to sing Christmas Carols in our neighborhood.  We went to our neighborhood Kim Chee shop, a “two-day old, brand-new” Family Mart, and our neighborhood Mexican restaurant, Obligato’s.  It was a great time as we sang songs in Japanese and English.  We ended the caroling walking to Joy chapel to eat some “ono” grinds!!!  We met a 100 year old grandma, who recently gave her heart to Jesus and was going to be baptized on Christmas day!  Praise God!   On December 25th, we had a great Christmas service.  We had one of our members, Mieko (for those of you who know her, Shino’s mom) read the story of Jesus to the children.  We even had special guests.  Tifffany, one of our members, brought her grandparents to church.  It was the first time they have ever gone to a church.  We sang a worship song in Hogen (the local Okinawan dialect) in honor of their visit.  Wakako’s (another one of our members) mom made a special visit and played shamisen (the local stringed instrument) and sang more Hogen worship songs.  We then had our Christmas banquet, where Alan and his wife made Turkey!!!  Ono ono ono!  It was truly a blessed Christmas in Gushikawa!
	On December 29th-we had our annual “Apartment” Christmas party.  We had our very own Sho Watanabe (9th grader) dressed as Santa.  We had the children take pictures and we had an exciting raffle ticket give-a-way.  Thank you to our dear friends Kimmy Morris and Suzanna Warfield, who got prizes for us from Hawaii.  We even had Karaoke singing at the party.  More than half the party were people who were not part of our church.  It was a great blessing to host these people of our community.  We had the Cabeebe family who we had met at our local sushi restaurant that we go a lot.  It is so cool because it is the second family we have met at that same restaurant.  What a blessing!
Happy New Year and praying that we all we have a blessed 2006!!!!     Prayer requests:   Please pray that God would lead us in the direction of how to specifically reach our community.  We believe that we are to share God’s love through three specific community events:  Easter, Halloween, and Christmas using dance (esp. Hula) and music in 2006. Please pray for spiritual protection and incredible breakthroughs for our children’s church as four of our members (Travis, Wakako, Tiffany, and Kelly will begin leading the children on a weekly rotation. Please pray for Cary and Chisako.  On November 1st,  Chisako and Cary started working full-time at Okinawa Christian School International, Chisako’s alma mater.   Please pray that they would have wisdom and direction in balancing their time with eachother, the church and the school. Please pray for God’s timing for Hope Chapel Gushikawa to move into our local community center, as the church continues to grow! Please pray for those who are feeling the call for the upcoming HCK missions team, which is planning on coming in April, 2006!  Thank you so much for your prayers and blessings!  We love you very much!