Pray with Japan, August 1, 2021

Lectionary Selection: John 6:24-35

Prayers for Japan:

God all-knowing, all-seeing, Almighty,
While we seek to know more, we cannot know all. While our eyes are open, sometimes we cannot see what is right in front of us. Sometimes we do not wish to.
While we work to be strong, we forget that only in you can we find true strength. The kind that both defends and protects with unfailing love.
God, help us to know you more, help us to see more, give us the desire to see.

We pray for comfort, for understanding, for strength to those in pain, for those who suffer all around the world. Our graduates, their families, their communities, their countries all around the world that are struggling but also bringing hope. May their light continue to shine.
We pray for the Olympics, for the vaccine rollout, for those that continue to live under the state of emergency, and for the day that our Participants will be able to arrive safely.
You are always with us, and your grace is sufficient. Help us to know it better, and to see it more clearly.

Amen.

Mission Stewardship Moment from Japan:

Martin taught me many things, but I was particularly impacted by two deep phrases.

The first is a proverb that says: Mountains do not meet, but people do. It can have several different meanings. For example, the idea that mountains cannot move and so never have the opportunity of meeting one another, but people can move and so there is always some chance that they will meet. It can also be taken as a way of saying to be careful with how you treat people because your behavior will impact not only that person, but everyone else that they meet. Another way you can think of it is in terms of revenge, but I certainly like the first two notions better.

The second thing is one that is familiar to the church. It is the expression “come to pass.” In Scripture we often read this expression, that something “came to pass” or “it shall come to pass.” Martin’s point was things do not come to stay, they come to pass. They do not remain. They go. They change, and then something else comes.

I am grateful for the life that God has given me. That He made me to be who I am and not a mountain. It is by His grace that a first-generation Guatemalan-Mexican-American would travel all the way to Japan to meet Martin, a rural leader from Kenya who would teach her the comforting and sobering fact that all things come to pass.

Prayer and Mission Moment by Maria Abigail Hernandez

Mission Partners in Japan

More about Japan

Global Ministries Mission Co-worker in Japan:
Abi Hernandez serves with the Asian Rural Institute, Japan. Her appointment is made possible by your gifts to Disciples Mission Fund, Our Church’s Wider Mission, WOC, and your special gifts.