Our Lord Jesus gave us another year to sacrifice our lives with joy for His name and His glory. God is the one holding us here and filling us with His beauty. We thank our Father because in the darkest times and when the trials of missionary work were heavy, He mercifully showed us that we don't need anything else but Him. We praise Him because He deserves it and there is nothing apart from His indescribable power and grace.

This last month was again unbelievable to remember that in Japan almost nobody knows who is Jesus and that Christmas is about Him. People go shopping encouraged by the marketing of red hats and Santa Claus, but Christmas is not a holiday and people just work like any other day. It is sad that all the Spanish immigrants who work in factories here are being molded by this system. Spanish immigrants come to Japan thinking that the financial stability and money will fill them and make them happy. But the god 'Money' is destroying them without mercy. Factories exploit the health and time of the immigrants offering them more money if they work more. It is like a drug seller who knows the addiction that the buyer has. The addiction in this case is the love for money. But God is using all this suffering and frustration to bring Spanish speaking people to Him.

After our last Christmas outreach concert, three ladies came asking for help in their lives. They expressed their desire to know God. Since then, they are attending the ladies' Bible studies and we are praying together so God will lead their hearts to repentance and belief.

Please pray for Alicia Tanaka. She is coming with her two kids regularly to church, and she told us now that God showed her sin and that she repented and gave her life to God. Please pray so we continue helping her to find with joy the evidence of her salvation. Also please pray for her husband. He is not a believer, and used to work on Sundays, but this last month he decided to not work and come with her to church.

Please pray for Marianella. She is a Peruvian who attended a church in Peru for 5 years. She told me that her Christian life was just rebellion and pain. So I challenged her to test the evidence of her conversion in the light of the Bible. She was angry but finally reading Bible verses she said that now things have more sense because she never experienced love for God and the joy of a new life. Please pray for her as she comes to God with her questions, confessions, and crying for mercy and grace.

Michiko has been attending our Japanese Bible study for one year, and now she told everybody that Jesus spoke to her heart, that she believes that He is God and that she wants to know Him more. She has started coming to the services with her kids. Please pray so God will protect her and protect the seeds of the Gospel. We know that the spiritual opposition is strong and furious when there is a chance that the 0.3% of real Christians in Japan could increase. She also told us that God is asking her to forgive her husband. Please pray for the mercy of God so He would save her and all her family.

Blessings and all the glory to God,
Luis, Nicola, Rohan and Lorien