Hello again friends & family!

The Summer is upon us bringing lots of great fellowship through several celebrations & ministry opportunities! Let us share with you a few of the things we’ve been up to this past month.

CCA West Coast Pastors’ & Leaders’ Conference

The first week of June brought us right into a 3-day Pastors’ & Leaders’ Conference held at Calvary Chapel Golden Springs. This was a refreshing conference where we were able to hear great messages and meet great people! Something we love about these conferences is how they really bring the Body of Christ together, whether you know the person sitting next to you or not! There is a beautiful unity within the global church, knitting our hearts together. It was a blessing to meet a few people at the conference and get to encourage one another in our ministries and spiritual walks.

Missionary Dessert Gathering

The following Sunday, our church held a “dessert gathering” for one of our missionary families who serve in North Africa. At a dessert gathering, we get to enjoy fellowship and dessert while the missionaries share about their past year of ministry. It is always so encouraging to hear their stories about how the Lord has been so faithful. 

One thing that the missionary shared that spoke to our hearts was on the topic of dependency on God. Being in such an isolated part of the world as far Christian community, the missionary said that it has forced him to learn how to depend on the Lord even more. But what has really helped grow him in his dependency on God has been reading the Scriptures. He said, “The more I read about who God is in His Word, the more I realize how utterly needy I am of Him.” This is so true, and his words really spurred in our hearts a greater desire to maintain that awe of God and dependency upon Him by reading the Word.

VBS 2024!

A big highlight of the month was definitely VBS (Vacation Bible School)! All the volunteers who helped make it happen were so talented and we loved seeing how much the kids enjoyed everything. Geoff and I got to run sound and media for the week; it’s always a blessing to get to serve together at these events. VBS takes a ton of work to put on but is always equally a ton of fun! Geoff made a VBS 2024 recap video if you want to check it out here.

A Quick Trip to Mexico!

Well, we finished off the month with a fun weekend trip to Rosarito, Mexico! We went down to visit Lydia’s family, attend her brother’s high school graduation, and celebrate her sister’s 20th birthday! It was a packed weekend but we were so grateful to be able to go and celebrate with everyone. 

Lydia’s family is going to be coming up to Yorba Linda soon to have a big BBQ and share with everyone about their past year of ministry in Mexico as missionaries. You are all invited! It will be July 13th at 2:00-6:00 P.M. If you are interested in joining, feel free to reply to this email and we can send you the address of the gathering!

Other New Things!

For the past 2 months I (Lydia) have been able to be tutored in Japanese by one of the friends we met during our trip to Japan. I have gotten to meet weekly with Mirei and learn many new phrases that will be helpful to know in everyday life. It’s been a blessing for me to learn under Mirei as well as grow in friendship!

I have also been leading a 1-on-1 weekly bible study with a friend at church for the past 2 months, which has been such a joy! We’ve been slowly going through the book of John together, with a focus on learning more of who God is. This has been so wonderful, to reason through the Scriptures together and grow more in love with who God is. 

Meanwhile, I (Geoff) have been continuing to grow the booth ministry (lyrics, livestream, and soundboard) at our church. We are creating training videos for both livestream and the soundboard which will be helpful as we bring new people onto the team. I have also been able to continue using my passion for photography and take a lot of photos for church events.

Thank You for Reading

We are so grateful to you for taking the time to read another one of our updates. Thank you to all who have been supporting us in prayer as well as finances. Your support and partnership truly means so to us! We are excited to update you on how the Lord leads next. We would greatly appreciate your prayers in the following:

• For a possible upcoming 3-month vision trip to Japan: That God would keep opening the doors and confirm this next step if it’s His will.
• For our marriage: That we keep learning how to better encourage and support one another, and that we would grow in our love for the Lord together.
• For Lydia’s discipleship with her friend: That the Lord would continue to give her wisdom in answering her friend’s questions about God.
• For Geoff: That he would grow in leadership over the booth ministry and that he would grow ever closer in relationship with the Lord.

Sincerely,

Geoff & Lydia Hamano

Dear friends and family, 

It’s been a whirlwind of events as usual and we’re sorry we couldn’t get this update out to you sooner, but we’re excited to finally share about our trip to Japan! We were there for about 8 full days and were thrilled to finally be able to see and experience the country we have been praying over. As I (Lydia) write this, it doesn’t even feel real that we were actually there on the other side of the world! But now we will share some of our main moments with you. 🙂

Landing in Japan

 As we stepped off our 15 ½ hour flight, we stretched out our legs and eagerly hurried to meet our friends Jeff and Alishia Root. The Roots had arrived a few days earlier with some of our other team members attending this trip. I (Lydia) had met Jeff and Alishia when we attended the Calvary School of Missions program together back in 2020. They were the ones who first stirred my heart for the spiritual needs in Japan and they have been preparing to move to Japan as long-term missionaries for the past 6 years. And as of January 2024, the Lord has officially planted them there!

 We were so happy to greet them in their new home of Japan and once we got our train passes we went straight to dinner with them at a yakitori restaurant in Tokyo. We were immediately immersed in the smells of the winter air, sizzling meat, and cigarette smoke permeating the restaurant. Sitting around the table we shared stories of our trip and went over the agenda for the next few days.

Afterwards we met up with the rest of our team and headed to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo. We went up to the top floor to see the beautiful city night life. Here, the Lord spoke to me (Geoff) of the needs of all the people through the lit-up city lights. There were what seemed to be thousands of red lights on top of all the skyscrapers. My heart felt burdened as each red dot symbolized to me a spiritual need blaring from the countless tall structures. As we continued into our next few days, we had the opportunity to speak with a few of the missionaries there who had great insight on how ministry is and how the people react to the gospel.

Ministry in Japan

 There were some hard truths we had to listen to, such as Japan is a very hard place to do ministry. The Japanese people are very engraved with their family heritage and that also means religion. If I could sum it up in one sentence I would say, Japan’s soil is very spiritually dry. But as we continued with our journey to Osaka, we began to see that the Lord is on the move in Japan. Meeting up with our main contacts Joseph and Amy who run Abide Osaka church, we were able to meet a lot of people and Lydia was able to even attend a women’s study. It was amazing to see how the gospel can truly change anyone, to the point where it felt like night and day with the Japanese people who have been converted to Christ.

 It was such a blessing for me (Lydia) to join Abide’s women’s bible study for a day! Amy is such a wonderful bible teacher and it was such a joy to fellowship with the other women afterwards. One lady I met was named Keiko. She was very kind and told me of her experience studying English abroad in her younger days and she shared a bit about her family too. We are both praying over unsaved relatives and the Lord gave me a Scripture passage to share with her. Luke 18:1-8 has always been an encouragement to me to keep praying for my unsaved relatives and to not give up. 

“Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.”

Luke 18:1

Before parting ways, Keiko wanted to give me one of the evangelism bracelets she carries around in her purse wherever she goes. It has a Japanese explanation of the symbolism behind each color bead telling the message of the gospel. It would be so amazing to take part in sharing the gospel in Japanese. I am currently taking Japanese lessons now but I have a long way to go!

Prayer Walk in Tokyo

A final experience in Japan we want to share with you is one of the prayer walks our team went on during the trip. This was very impactful to us as we walked around a park in Tokyo where they had various shrines that people would go up to, bow, pray, and some offer money. Most Japanese don’t really believe in the religion of Buddhism/Shintoism but they continue to do its religious practices for the sake of family tradition. Their loyalty is very strong and it would be extremely shameful if an individual left their family religion. They typically view Christianity as a “western ideology” rather than a possibility of truth. So despite the religious freedom in Japan, most Japanese are very closed off to the gospel. Please join us in praying for the people of Japan as there is a great spiritual stronghold over this country. 

So, Are We Called to Japan?

As we have had a lot of time to process our trip and pray through it, we don’t believe God has confirmed to us a “yes” or “no” to serving in Japan. Rather we both felt the Lord telling us, “wait.” Though we both have a burdened heart for the Japanese, we believe God hasn’t called us to go yet, or make serious moves towards going. Instead He has called us to be faithful where we are at. Though it is difficult sometimes to not know for sure where or when we are going to serve long-term, we trust God with the process.

We will be staying in Yorba Linda for the time being, continuing our missionary training with SGWM and serving with CC Saving Grace. Geoff has taken on a leadership role this year in the sound/media ministry and has been blessed to train up more servants for that ministry. I (Lydia) continue to work in the SGWM office as an admin assistant as well as continue to grow in discipling other women at church. I love this amazing life God has given us and am so excited for what God is doing in this season!

Geoff and I are so grateful for all of your support as we pursue what God has called us to. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter and keeping us in your prayers. We look forward to sharing with you what God does next!

Sincerely,

Geoff & Lydia

More Photos!

A couple of Fridays ago I was teaching on Mark 13 to my middle schoolers, just asking them if they were really ready for Jesus to come back. Many said no, and the Lord got them thinking about it in ways they hadn’t before or hadn’t in a while. A big question for me lately is, “am I ready for Jesus to come back?” My oh my has He been doing a work in my heart with that one. It’s been a very busy season of life, but I feel like it’s been a fairly productive one too. It’s been amazing to see the Lord’s provision and strength as I’ve been dealing with work, ministry, and some big transitions as I prepare to go to Peru. Many things have been weighing on my heart regarding family and other practical needs that need tending before I would leave for Peru. Many of those big things are being provided for as we speak, and I am looking forward to all that the Lord is going to do.

PERU

The Lord has certainly provided for this go-around to Peru, your prayers and financial support are such a blessing! As I am currently in country and have been up to a lot the last two days, this update will be a segue into a special second edition coming soon to an email near you. Already I see the Lord doing much to prepare my heart and mind for the challenges that may come and I am beyond grateful for how the Lord has been giving me the grace to deal with it well. On Saturday morning it became clear there would be a couple snags as I headed down to join the team en route to Peru. An early delay brought about a flight carrier and connection change so I ended up meeting the team in Lima rather than at LAX. I honestly had a fair amount of time to spare and even with delays and some other curve balls, the Lord caused me to meet up with the team from Saving Grace almost right after they checked their bags. Prior to that I got to meet an elderly gentleman by the name of Jeff. We had a great conversation, but outside of me sharing what I was up to, I didn’t get to talk with him more about the Gospel. He’s an American ex-pat who lives in Thailand with his wife and adopted daughter and couldn’t speak more highly of the Thai people. With that he expressed that he felt he aligned most with Buddhist ideals and beliefs, and kindly emphasized he was not a Christian. As I was trying to find a pause to share and at least give a few Gospel thoughts to hopefully spark some eternal thinking about what would happen when he died, and point him to a loving Savior, there was a call to prep for boarding. Any chance I had may have disappeared as I didn’t see him again long enough to share. Please pray that the Lord world bring more Christians to share the Gospel with him and that he would have a heart to hear the Lord’s call!

After meeting up with the team in Lima around 10pm California time, we boarded our flight 2 hrs later and got into Trujillo around 5:30am Peru (Texas) time. So far it’s been a sweet but busy couple days. Many familiar faces and lot’s of new ones as we’ve also been joined by CBI Kauai.  Please be praying for our teams and the outreach that will be happening in the midst of the big church planting conference coming later this week! There’s a lot to do, but with the Lord and many of his hands I know He will see us through. He is up to something good, and I’m excited! With that I think it’s time for me to go to bed! Hopefully I will be doing a workout bright and early! Prior to my part 2, feel free to add me on Facebook or Instagram for some behind the scenes looks at what the Lord is up to down here in Péru.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• Middle School while I’m in Peru (Miss them already)

• Time in Peru, to bring refreshment for students and pastors who are serving and attending the conference 

• For teams to stay bold in the Lord and for his hand of protection during service and outreach

• Team unity

• Hearts to be stirred for missions

• Laborers for the harvest is plentiful…

• Relationships with students and staff to grow
• for the Lords will to be done!

P.S. If you’re wondering how you can get involved with what the Lord is doing, I will be giving some more info about that on part 2.

Thank you for your prayers and God bless you!

– Jordon

Dear friends and family,

The past couple months have held quite a lot in them for my life here in Yorba Linda. I knew I was heading into a heavily busy season of life, and though it’s been challenging, I’m learning really valuable lessons.

Wait, Hold On a Moment

Due to how busy my life gets, I often feel overwhelmed in the midst of it. And I forget why I’m doing all of it in the first place. But the Lord slows me down and beckons me to sit still with Him.

It’s easy to get caught up in the stress of all my tasks and responsibilities and so I take myself back to the Bible passage about Mary and Martha. Where Jesus told Martha, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42). At the end of the day, there is only one thing worth being concerned about, and that is pausing to sit at the feet of Jesus.

Visitor from Mexico

Now that I’ve shared what the Lord has shown me in the midst of my busyness, I’d like to share just a few special moments from the busy season.

First, Hugo Limon, a pastor from Culiacán, Mexico, visited our church at the end of April. He has planted almost 10 churches in Mexico since 2015, and he actually joined our missions organization (Saving Grace World Missions) last year.

It was so awesome to hear what the Lord has been doing in his ministry in Mexico and how the Lord has stirred his heart to even figure out a way to send church planters to the Middle East! Hugo is such a gifted and humble guy, and it was such a blessing to hear him share his testimony at a house gathering one of our pastors held for him.

Hope Central Watts Outreach

The next thing I want to share is a little trip I took in May with a team from my church to Hope Central Watts, a church in Los Angeles. We went over to do a “church takeover” to relieve some of the congregants from serving on a Sunday. My roommate Tori and I ran the children’s ministry class and taught “Noah’s Ark.”

I loved this short trip, the church reminded me of the church I grew up in because it was a small, Spanish-speaking church. I really can’t wait to go back this month and get to know some of the congregants a little more this time.

Dessert Gathering for the Roots

Before I wrap up this long update, I want to lastly share about a dessert gathering my church had for my friends Jeff and Alishia Root. They are a couple called to serve in Japan and Lordwilling, I, Geoff, and another couple at my church will be sent out to serve there with them too one day.

At their dessert gathering, Jeff and Alishia shared about their recent 3-month vision tour to Japan where they visited different Christian churches there. The Lord confirmed to them to go to Osaka and serve alongside another missionary couple at Abide Osaka church.

It was so amazing to hear about their trip and be stirred again for the spiritual needs in Japan. Japan is about the size of California and yet their population is about 125 million! And of all those people, less than 1% are Christian.

Jeff and Alishia are planning to move long-term to Japan in the new year and we are planning to have a 2-week vision tour thee in early Spring. Please pray for both these trips.

And Now You’ve Reached the End

Thank you so much for reading my update- I know it was a long one this time! I love you all so much and thank you especially to those of you who have reached out to me lately, I really appreciate you guys. As I’ve mentioned in this newsletter, it’s been an intensely busy season lately and so thank you for your patience with me! I’m hoping things will slow down a bit more in September when I’m on break from the internship. Until next time! God bless.

Sincerely,

Lydia Grace

Praise Reports:

• I got to visit my sister in Sacramento for a few days in June

• I’m almost done with my first year of the SGWM internship

• The Lord is helping me grow in my weak areas

Prayer Requests:

• That I would serve with the right heart and through the Lord’s strength

• For God’s guidance in my next steps

• That I would keep growing in patience and contentment in Christ

Dear friends and family,

Last month was definitely a busy one for me! With Easter on the horizon, there was a lot to be done leading up to April. Though life in the SGWM (Saving Grace World Missions) internship can be overwhelming at times, I’m so grateful for the opportunities that it brings, as well as the people I get to serve alongside. Let me share a couple moments of this past month with you.:)

Evangelism Ministry

Our church has multiple evangelism opportunities every month and I’ve chosen to mainly take part in the “complex outreach.” For the complex outreach, we go around the building complex where our church is located and visit each business owner. It’s a way to reach out to our neighbors, let them know that we’re here and praying for them as well. Most of them can’t stay to chat for long due to their busy working hours, but it has been so cool to just get to know them bit by bit and be able to slowly grow relationships. 

There is also a door-to-door outreach our church does twice a month as well, and in March we mainly went around inviting neighbors to our Easter event. Talking to strangers is always more intimidating in my head than it is in real life haha. 

Working at Saving Grace World Missions

I love my job at SGWM! My responsibilities here are gradually increasing so that’s exciting for me. This past month we started onboarding a new missionary to our organization and so I’ll be helping a lot to make sure we get certain information from them, and that they get certain information/training from us. It’s so exciting to be a part of this side of their missionary journey.

VOR Women’s Day 

This past month I also had the opportunity to serve at a women’s event with the Voice of the Refugees. This Women’s Day event was a day of fun and relaxing pampering for Afghan and Arab refugee women here in Southern California. It was such a blessing to be part of this event of serving and loving on these women. The VOR event had different “pampering stations” such as pedicures, manicures, and facials. I got to give facials in a relaxing “candle lit” quiet room with about eight other women. This was a lot of fun and the refugee women had a good time too. I would definitely recommend coming to help out at this event if you’re able to, they put it on every year in March.

Thank you so much for reading another one of my monthly newsletters! Your support means so much to me and I really appreciate all your messages and prayers. I’m so grateful for this chapter of life I’m in and am happy to be able to share it with you all as well. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! 

Until next time,

Lydia Boubion

Dear friends and family,

SGWM Internship

I have now joined the Saving Grace World Missions internship at Calvary Chapel Saving Grace. I am taking 3 classes right now in the internship- one on cross-cultural missions, one on Ephesians, and one focusing on the historical study of Acts. The internship class also requires me to create a 15-minute bible study every week and present it to be critiqued. I definitely have a lot of areas to improve in but I really enjoy it! 

My New Job!

At the end of last month, the Lord provided a job for me! I’m super excited to share that I’ve been brought on as the new administrative assistant for the Saving Grace World Missions office. My primary job is to onboard new missionaries to our organization and help them through that process. I am also helping out current missionaries with any questions or technical issues they run into. The job involves a lot of communication and problem solving and I love it! It is so exciting to be a part of the amazing work of ultimately spreading the gospel to the world. I’m learning so much about the practical side of what it means to be sent out onto the mission field. 

Red Light on Japan Trip

There were a lot of ups and downs for me these past weeks and one of the disappointments was realizing I wouldn’t be able to go on the Japan vision trip after all. Unfortunately different aspects of the plan just fell through very suddenly and within a very short amount of time, preventing me from going. I know things always happen for a reason though, and I trust in God’s timing. I know I’ll be able to go one day when the time is right. For now though, I can keep focusing on the mission’s internship, as well as wedding planning:)

Dinner at Life Group bible study!

Praise Reports:

• I got a job at Saving Grace World Missions!
• I got a bike!
• I’ve joined a women’s discipleship group for the intern girls

Prayer Requests:

• For Geoff’s and my relationship and life/wedding plans and provisions
• That my love and trust in the Lord would deepen
• That I would be able to maintain my relationships well in the midst of a busy schedule