The summer is beginning....

This week is a pretty big week for Calvary Chapel Ginowan. Pastor Tommy and his family will be taking a trip back to America for a few weeks to attend confrences and seminars. That means most of us students and interns will be spending a few weeks without Tommy's guidance. Please pray for us as this will be a time when satan will try to attack us.
Although we will be without our "leader" we know that our Heavenly Father will be guiding us and directing us. We are never alone as christians, especially on the mission field.

If the Lord has put us on your heart to pray for, please pray over these things:

• That Calvary Chapel Ginowan would be well taken care of while Tommy is gone.
• That the Ruiz family would be blessed in the states and their travel there and back would be smooth and enjoyable.
• For strength, unity and peace among all the missionaries at the Cafe.
• That the Holy Spirit would remind us if we left the coffee pot or AC unit on lol.

Thank you all for your prayers!!

-The Spearmans

The best year of our lives!

Today is a very special day for the Spearmans. One year ago, we stood before God, the one true God and created a covenant to each other in front of Him and our close family and friends.
It has been a short year, filled with so many adventures. It had it's hard times, but they are far out weighed by the blessings and joy we have experienced. God has been faithful and true to bring us past circumstance, and to focus on the true essence of Love. We cannot express to you how much we appreciate your prayers for us, we have felt them this whole year in such strong ways.

We stand here today, loving each other immeasurably more than we did only a year ago. Jesus Christ is the sole reason for this. As we have been immersing ourselves into God's word, our bibles, we have been growing more and more into the kind of Love Jesus Christ showed us on the Cross. We still have so far to go, but praise God we are not where we were a year ago.

To celebrate this occasion, we spent the whole day together. It was relaxing and peaceful. For dinner we went to the local grocery store and partook in one of our favorite hobbies: Shopping for a cheap combination of prepared foods! Japans markets are filled to the brim with all sorts of items you can throw together for lunch or dinner, but it's up to you to select a big expensive lunch box, or use your cunning to put together you own. This is a favorite hobby of ours!
After this, we went to Sky Lark Gusto! (pictured below)

They offer all sorts of foods, but along side that they have a "Premium Drink Bar"!

This can be ordered onto your food or standing alone. We ordered it by it's self and helped ourselves to all sorts of fruit juices, coffee's and Herbal Teas! What a treat. It's refreshing to go to a "Bar" with no alcohol! We spent a good 2 hours there (they allow long sitters) and after that went to PuriKura!

PuriKura is basically it's a huge photo-booth with a green screen. You select different kinds of digital backgrounds and take some awesome pictures. After that you use a touch screen/pen to decorate the pictures with images and text. It's always a blast and pretty funny too. These pictures do not do them justice, but here's a sneak peak.




Thanks for Celebrating with us!!

Joyfully,
-The Spearmans

Bible College Graduation!

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Rusty has finally done it!
He is officially graduated from Calvary Chapel Bible College!


It's been a good 2 years and God has grown him drastically. He holds his diploma as a different man from when he held his application papers.
Thank you all for supporting Rusty thru the hard times of bible college and for listening to him when he was sharing something with you that he has learned.
If you have a moment, click on the videos below to hear his short graduation speech. (The sound quality is not very high, so you may or may not need to plug in headphones.)


We are now standing with open arms to see what God is going to do now what we are not inside the boundaries of school. Please continue to pray for us as we are ministering in Japan.



-the spearmans

Visa.....APPROVED

"Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he [is] God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generation" Deuteronomy 7:9

Well guys, we got the phone call today and ran down to immigration. We applied for 3 year missionary visa and were approved for 1 year missionary visas! Although we did not get the 3 year, we are blessed to have a whole year to be established in Japan and once our 1 year is up, we will re-apply for 3 years.

Now that we have a missionary visa we will be free to travel to and from Japan easily and we can also apply for Japanese bank accounts and other things our temporary visitor visas would not allow. We can start to build our Japanese style life and get ready for whatever God has in store.

Once again we would like to thank you for all your prayer over our paperwork. The Lord hears and blesses.

Finals!

Finals week is upon us. Rusty is polishing off some of his classes and turning in his final exams. He graduates tomorrow!

I am so proud of Rusty and of all the hard work and dedication he is putting into his Bible College experiance. Expect to see some pictures of his graduation soon!

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On another note, today was the final day of our Ruth and Esther class. I was given the oppertunity to teach thru the two books and offer it as a 1 credit class. This was a first for me thru the bible college. Last semester I was teaching the "Womens Discipleship" class, but this semester was my first time being assigned to a book of the bible and getting to teach it expositionally.

The word has so much inside of it if your just willing to look. Even text that is so old can hold so many truths and principles for us today!

I know I was blessed with the study time I put into it and it's so cool to see it coming to an end without exploding. What a cool oppertunity the Lord gave me!

-Amber

Golden Week was so much fun!

Happy Golden Week!!!

Many of you do not know what Golden Week is,
Here is a link to a very well put together web-page about it.
But for those of you who don't want to read the whole page, it's basically a week of National Holidays all gathered in one week, so many of the people get 5 to 7 days off work. Among the other holidays, we celebrate Children's Day.

We went to the beach and got to see a traditional game from Japan. The kids smash a watermelon on the beach, but since it's kind of messy, recently they have upgraded to putting it on a tarp or in a plastic box. It's kind of like a pinata without the sugar.

Also, you know when kids day is coming up, because you see these carps flying off all the houses. They represent the Father, mother and then all the kids who live in the house. It makes the roads look so festive!

Also during this year's Golden Week, Calvary Chapel Ginowan took the opportunity to host a Worship Conference. We sent fliers out to mainland Japan and invited whoever would come. The event started Sunday night and ended Wednesday afternoon. We had workshops on singing and basics on guitars, along with focusing on the psalms, remembering that David was a Worship Leader.

It really was a blessed time, and even tho we where all running around, our spirits were refreshed. Thank you once again everyone who flew out from the Tokyo area.

Enjoy the short video of Hakugaijin, our local band who mixes japanese and english for a delighful musical experiance. :D

-The Spearmans

Equipped Youth.

Well it's Friday in Japan. So that means tonight we have Equipped Youth on Camp Kinser.
We have been having such a blast hanging out with the kids and getting into the word with them. They are such a great group of kids and we always manage to have a fun night of bible and games.
Last week we tried out a new style of game (we usually play hide and seek, sardines or infection), and this week we will be working out some of the kinks. It's called Bible Battles. <--- Follow the link for more details, but it's basically a mix between Capture the Flag and Sword Drills. We still have a few tactical rules to try out, but I think the kids got the hang of it. Next week will be a shorter night because Camp Kinser is hosting a Volunteer Appreciation Dinner and we will be attending with the Kids. After the dinner we will go back to the chapel to play some games to wrap up the night.

These kids are awesome, but they still need prayer. 3 of them will be moving back to the states sometime this month, so we only have a few more weeks with them at the most! Please pray that what they learn at youth group will stay with them as they go back to the states. Also, please pray that they will find good christian fellowship back in America.

-The Spearmans