Dear Praying Friends and Family

Season’s Greetings from Hokkaido!  The Fall season that is: the trees are turning, the crops are being harvested, and the winterizing process has begun!  There was barely a summer here in Nayoro with only about a week and a half of high temps and only a couple of nights of uncomfortable heat.  The constant rain and cool weather made for an unproductive year for crops all across the island, resulting in a poorer than hoped for harvest time here, but we still managed to put in store some blessings for the winter.  There are also lots of new gardening lessons that can be applied to the next year’s garden, and new seed sewn for a spiritual garden.

Broken Borders . . .  At the end of July, Emmanuel Bible Baptist Church had a three day VBS at a local park.  We had a good crowd of kids all three days – and even a few parents, onlookers, and walk-ins.  Many heard the Gospel for the first time; and Shellee, Josiah, and I all voiced a part in the puppet skits.  We could understand a lot more Japanese than we could last year and I even (very roughly) translated for a Canadian exchange student that came.  (I think it was more difficult to translate from American English to Canadian than it was from Japanese to English, eh?)   We have since seen some of these young people in the regular church services.

We certainly don’t think of ourselves as missionaries exclusively to the Japanese and we thank the Lord for the opportunities to talk to those from outside of Japan.  Besides talking to the fellow from Canada, we have had opportunity to talk to a fellow from Australia and some folks from China.  We know that the Lord did not bring them by on accident and are grateful to get the Gospel to these folks.  Please pray for all of the ones who have been given tracts lately.

Dear Praying Friends and Family:

We have had a busy couple of months since our last letter.  It’s so hard to believe that we have been in Japan a year already!!   We count it a great privilege to be here, and  to see the Lord’s blessing with some “handfuls of purpose” as the Lord rewards the Smith’s faithfulness in sewing Gospel seeds over the past seventeen years here in Nayoro.  .  We thank the Lord for the great honor of serving Him in Japan and for those of you that hold the ropes in prayer.

Planting... Spring has sprung and the Nayoro landscape has come to life.  The last of our snow pile out back lasted until the middle of June and we have been all too pleased for the chance for warmer weather.  Even though the calendar says it’s summer time, the temperatures have remained relatively cool and wet and reminds us of an Indiana spring.

Our gardens are planted and slowly but surely growing with the limited sunshine and temps dropping into the upper 40s at night.  We rented a garden plot this year with the hope s of making more contacts with people in the community, and the Lord has been faithful to guide and bless all