Month: May 2022

Hello everyone!

My name is Etsuko Hotta living in Tottori Prefecture😊.

This time I would like to tell you about the wonderful work of God who is very good at connecting people with people!

At the “regional meetings” held at the JCFN EC and GRC, there were fewer returnees from the Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu area than from the Kanto and Kansai areas, where many returnees gather, and I felt somewhat sad about that. I felt saddened thinking that returnees who moved from abroad to the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu areas might have been isolated in their faith. How sad to even think about it! Aren’t there really more returnees in the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu areas who just aren’t connected to each other? I want to strengthen the network of returnees in western Japan! (I myself am not a returnee like Setsu. Yup, a Christian born in Japan! LOL).

I expressed this desire to several members of the Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu region gathered at the GRC21 regional meetings, and we agreed that we should first get to know each other and then connect! We agreed that we should get to know each other and connect! We prayed for guidance and wondered what we could do, and from there our Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu group’s monthly online gatherings began. Our members are returnees from the U.S. and New Zealand, living in Okayama, Shimane, Tottori, Kochi, Kagawa, Fukuoka, and Daegu, Korea (originally from Okayama), and new returnees are being added as we continue to meet. In our meetings, we share the difficulties we are facing, encourage each other to outreach to returnees who are not connected to the church or God’s family, and pray for each other. We also sometimes hear testimonies and ponder the Word together. We started this online gathering not knowing if we could continue, but God has connected us and led us, and it has been a year now. Thank you, God!

We are looking forward to what God wants to do through this Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu group (we are currently considering the name of the group), and we pray that each member will be equipped to give glory to the Lord in the places to which he or she has been sent.
Ephesians 4:16 says, “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” We, too, should be complemented and united with each other by Christ, work according to our own portion, and be built up by His love, becoming the body of Christ that covers Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu, even though we live in different areas!

And may it be connected to the whole body of Christ that covers all of Japan♡.