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