A few weeks ago, at the beginning of September (Tuesday 8th), we had our quarterly Board meeting for Tokyo Marunouchi Partnership (TMP). At this Board meeting we reflected on the progress of the TMP activities over the first half of the year. And so, we had each of the TMP team leaders (Makito Miyashita – leads Samurai Projects, Hirano Takaaki – leads Marunouchi Church Tokyo, Naomi Tamanuki – leads General Administration, Thierry – leads Marunouchi Office Groups) supplementing their previously submitted written half-year report with 10-15 minutes of explaining their half-year’s activities, followed by 15 minutes of questions from the Board. I very much enjoyed this interaction and was reminded again of the privilege of seeing all of the fabulous activities which the LORD is doing through each of the departments here at TMP.
Then, the day after the Board meeting (Wednesday 9th), the thirteen Samurai students returned back to their weekly training sessions (Wednesday and Thursday mornings) after their summer break. Having been trained in how to give Bible talks and sermons before the summer, the Samurai were straight into giving sermons themselves and receiving feedback from their fellow students.
Following this, in the evening of Wednesday 9th, Hirano led a Marunouchi Movie Club event, watching a film about a pastor who forgot his love for God and others, and in the end murdered his own son. This is one of the six Marunouchi Hobby Clubs which Hirano began just over a year ago to help Christians and those who are not yet Christian to spend time together here in Marunouchi.
Then, the following day (Thursday 10th), two days after the Board meeting, we had a Marunouchi Office Groups (MOGs) leaders training evening. Our preparations were a little bit tight for time, but the LORD helped us, and the whole staff team worked together to put on a great evening. We are trying to have two leaders for each of the 14 Marunouchi Office Groups. And of the 25 current MOGs leaders, 15 of them were able to attend the training evening. We received many comments of feedback on how much the leaders found the evening to be a deep encouragement, as they shared together how each of their groups are going. Some groups are full of joys and have those not yet Christian deeply engaging with the Bible. Other groups are full of challenges at present, with it being hard to gather a core of participants.
We are thankful to our gracious LORD for the privilege of doing authentic gospel ministry here in Marunouchi.