Several things fell into place this month. The Lord is faithful and He has blessed above anything we could have imagined and in His perfect timing. It’s easy to look back and write that now. It doesn’t mean that we didn’t have our share of anxious days and stress-filled nights. We haven’t always had peace since arriving in Japan (visa delays and plan changes and team leading etc.), but we have always had access to the Peacemaker. We didn’t often have confidence in the Japanese government, but we did have confidence in our calling. So those moments of doubt and anxiety were hard, but thankfully few and short-lived.

Since our last update, our change of status was approved, and we now have our three-year visas. Once those arrived, we were able to register with the local city office and look for a place to rent. We had been praying for the right place for several months, but it’s still difficult to rent as a foreigner in Japan. Alishia had been using a website to see what rental units were available in the area around the church, but nothing quite fit our list that we had been praying about. There was a surprisingly low number of places that were open, and it looked like we wouldn’t have many options. However, the day that our visas came through, and we could officially start looking for a place, one came available. It was the place we had been praying for and met every one of our needs. We moved in this week, and it already feels like home.

We were also able start serving at the church. We set-up and tear-down for our church gatherings on Friday nights and Sundays, we help out with English class on Fridays and Saturdays, and Alishia goes to the ladies’ bible study on Tuesdays. We are preparing for the church’s Easter outreach as well as doing discipleship with some of the other volunteers at the church. And of course, now that Alishia has a kitchen, she is inviting anyone and everyone over for meals or tea. Please keep all of these interactions in prayer.

We will be making a ‘short’ trip back to the States in May for Alishia’s American citizenship ceremony, as well as Daphne’s high school graduation. We’d love to spend time with you then if you’re free and we’re in your area. We’ll only be able to be in Montana and California this time, so let us know. Thank you so much for your prayers, they mean so much to us.

Prayer requests:

-Praise the Lord that we have an apartment and that we are getting it set up!

-Pray for our ministry opportunities, especially our upcoming Easter outreach.

-Pray for our trip back to America that is coming up in May.  

What a month we have experienced. Things have moved fast and obstacles have been removed, doors have been opened and bonds have been forged in the furnace of life on the mission field. Let’s go over some of the highlights. We headed towards Japan in a pretty humble way, by driving to California. On the way, we visited friends in Las Vegas and Yucca Valley before arriving in Orange County. Our time there flew by quickly as we had a full schedule of meetings with friends and our sending organization, and before we knew it, the day of our departure had arrived.

Like a more famous group before us, we joined with nine others to form a fellowship that headed to Land of the Rising Sun. Which sounds epic but mostly just a flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Once there, we spent a week meeting with Calvary Chapel pastors in the Tokyo area, helping with an earthquake relief outreach, and praying over a city of 35 million people who don’t know Jesus.

It was during one of those pray sessions that we went to the observation deck in the Tokyo government building. 450 feet in the air, with unobstructed views in all directions, and you could not see the end of the mass of people. The sheer size of the metropolis was somewhat overwhelming. It had such a big impact on all of us as we realized the task before us. Could the Lord use us to reach these millions? Well yes, He can, but He wouldn’t do it all in one day. We only have to focus on what He puts in front of us each day and be faithful to that.

After the end of the week, the team traveled to Osaka to see the place we are called to and see the work there. The church really enjoyed having the team with them and embraced us whole heartedly. We were able to give the missionaries a week off as we did an English language worship night for the midweek service and then Pastor Trent taught the Sunday service. Most of the team headed for Indonesia on Monday and those of us that stayed were ready to settle in.

Unfortunately, the settling will have to wait. We applied for our certificates of eligibility in October. The timeframe on those is supposed to be less than 90 days, and the 90-day mark was January 25. Since we were flying out on January 29, we knew that the timing would be close, but we shouldn’t have any issues getting it worked out before we left. Well, the 25^th came and went and the certificates didn’t arrive, they hadn’t arrived by the 29^th but since we were leading a team, we decided we should go and trust we could take care of it on the Japan side. They finally arrived on the 31^st and we were given three years!! Once the team had left, we went to the immigration office to apply for a change of status, we explained the situation to one of the officers there and were scolded for doing things out of the proper order and to not expect that they would accept our change of status applications. However, after praying about it that night, we returned the next day and turned in our applications and there seemed to be no issues from the people taking the officers there. Please pray for our change of status and that the visas would come through quickly so we can rent an apartment and start putting down roots.

Here are some ways to pray for us until our next newsletter:

• Alishia’s American citizenship was approved and her oath ceremony is on May 16. Please pray for us as we make plans to return for that and Daphne’s high school graduation on June 1.
• For direction in finding an apartment that meets our needs and allows us to use it for ministry.
• Wisdom in finding a language school that meets our needs

As of the time in which I write you this update, we are 58 days from getting on a plane and moving our life to Japan. We are 75% funded as far as our recurring monthly needs are concerned, so please pray about partnering with us financially. And to all of you that have gotten behind us, and have helped to encourage and get us to this point, thank you and may the Lord bless you mighty for your commitment and care for us.

Hello, this is Alishia Root, and I am about to become a missionary wife. It has taken roughly 6 years to arrive at the gate of launching out as full time missionaries. A time spent learning about culture and learning how to be ministry workers. The days have been full of change, adaptation, and reconstruction as we grow in our understanding of God’s heart for the unreached. The part we as the church are to play, as both goers and senders, in fulfilling the great commission. And most importantly growing in our understanding of His gracious love for us personally. 

This is the picture I use to illustrate and understand the life of a missionary … Remember the first time you wanted to tackle a big roller coaster? There was promise of thrill and some unknowing apprehension, but it seemed fun, so why not. So you get in line, and the line is rather long. You wonder if you will get to the ride head before the day is over ( I equate this to the waiting period of a young missionary), but it is moving so you just settle in and move along inch by inch. At some point the coaster is on top of you, and people are screaming. Then your time comes, you sit down willingly, and you get strapped in (those straps for a missionary are the prayers of the saints). And you start climbing that hill, click…Click…CLICK, up it goes. At this point there are all sorts of feelings and emotions, some excitement, some apprehension. Then you reach the top and whoosh down. You plunge into the places the ride is going to take you (or in this case the Holy Sprit). And then you get off and you realize you kind of want to do it all again. 

My idea of what missions is, and what a missionary is tasked with, has grown and the weight of the task ahead has sunk in. Along with the size of the task ahead, my understanding of God’s sovereignty and hand leading has grown as well. I find myself looking back to all the trials and moments of growth that not just the last 6 years, but a lifetime, has prepared me for, all leading up to this moment. I think about the way my dad taught me as a young girl to use chopsticks in a game of picking up peas. Or how the reserved and pragmatic nature of Jeff’s parents, trained him up in a mindset very similar to the Japanese mind. I have thought of the ways the Lord has allowed me to experience a level of culture shock moving from rural Montana with its “Montana time” (if you know, you know) to the fast paced scheduled out calendar of being an intern at a busy California church. 

I have been blessed to love lives of people that serve the Lord all over this planet. I have been blessed with experiences I never expected to have. I have seen not just my husband, but other young missionaries learn to be missionaries, pastors, and ministry workers. There have been friends made. There have been moments that the Lord’s voice has been so sure. There has been fellowship in a depth that amazed me. There has been learning to support others and learning to be a wife that holds up a husband that has expectation on him. 

And there has been costs to be payed. For every life I have been given the joy to love, I now place at Jesus’ feet as I will be separated by an ocean. There has been ministry lessons that have broken my heart. And personal trials that have brought me to my knees. But learning to be on your knees is the posture required of every missionary, so I rejoice in the lessons and shaping of Jesus. 

So, it’s all lead up to this point. We are strapped onto this rollercoaster and clicking up that hill. Please pray for all we have ahead of us.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

As we endeavor to be more Christ-like in our lives, I’m reminded of Matthew 11:28-30. In those verses Jesus tells us that His burden is light, He doesn’t put a heavy weight upon us. In fact, in Him, we find rest and relief from the weight of this world, it’s the opposite of a burden. As ministers of Christ, how can we emulate Christ by not being a burden on those we’re ministering to, and beyond that what can I do to relieve the burdens of those around us?

I often think about this question, not because I view myself as an incredible burden currently, although I’m sure I have my moments, but because of a conversation that we had with a missionary years ago. One of our friends gave us the contact information of a veteran missionary in Japan. He had been there several years, had an effective ministry in Japan and the Philippines, and had come from our denomination, so we were excited to connect with him over the phone. The missionary was great and very helpful, but the first thing he said to us has stuck with me four years later. He said “I hope you come to Japan and serve, but I don’t really have a place for you in my ministry. The minute you land at the airport here in Tokyo, you are a burden to me or my team. I don’t say that to discourage you, it’s just the reality of the situation. You don’t speak the language, you can’t rent an apartment or set up utilities. A national will have to take you to every government appointment and help you accomplish the simplest of tasks.”  

The Holy Spirit used the bluntness of his comments to teach me a valuable lesson that day. We had not yet started our missions training at SGWM and we didn’t realize how childlike we would become in our adopted culture. We viewed ourselves as a blessing, called of the Lord, coming to help the people of Japan. That conversation cured us of that notion and we decided that night, while talking to each other, to do whatever we could to shorten the amount of time we would burden the Japanese church. We knew we couldn’t eliminate it all together (the law prohibits foreigners from being able to do somethings without a Japanese guarantor), but we could reduce the weight and length that they would have to carry for us. Thus, we began three years of cross-cultural training and internship, language learning and growing spiritually before we left for Japan. Please pray for us to be a blessing and not a burden in any way to those in Japan.

Please also pray about partnering with us financially. Our sending organization has a policy that we have 80% of our monthly needs funded before we can go so that we don’t become a financial burden on the indigenous church. They are wonderful, loving, Christian people, and if they saw we were struggling to make ends meet, they would help us any way they could. We don’t want to ever put them in that situation, but especially not when we’ve just arrived. We are currently at 50% of our monthly needs, so please consider coming along side us to get to our monthly goal. At the same time, we don’t want to be a burden to any of you, so please give prayerfully and within your means. No amount is too small or insignificant, The Lord will bless and multiply it. If you already partner with us, thank you so much, it means the world to us. It is incredibly humbling to have people believe in your calling and want to get behind you. The ‘financial partner’ link is at the bottom of this letter.

Thank you all for your prayers and support.

Prayer requests:

• For the Lord to provide everything we need (financial, visa, moving logistics, etc.) for our move to Japan.
• For Jeff as he teaches the midweek service at the church.
• For Alishia’s health and strength as she ministers and works each day.
• For the team going to Japan with us for a few weeks in January, and the planning of the trip.
• For Alishia’s US citizenship process, that the timing would work with our departure.

Autumn has arrived in Montana, and as the seasons change on the calendar, they are changing for us as well. September was spent by getting things in order, and then mailing away applications for our Japanese visas. As well as planning our move and the trip we are leading for other prospective missionaries. We are very excited to take the next step in what we feel called to, and we are so thankful that the Lord continues to lead us down that path. It’s of course a bit scary giving up everything we’ve worked for over the years to follow the Lord, but He has blessed us every step of the way, and we wouldn’t change a thing.

I (Jeff) returned this week from a short-term missions trip to Peru. My friend, Henry, and I were able to join a team from Saving Grace World Missions in California and another from CBI (Calvary Bible Institute) Kauai in Hawaii, that served at CBI Peru as they hosted the Calvary South America Missions Conference. The week leading up to the conference was spent preparing the campus for the influx of the hundreds of people that would be attending the conference, as well as preparing meals and getting to know the students. The trip was both challenging and invigorating, and I’m so glad that I was able to go.

The conference itself was a huge success. It was well attended, there were no major hiccups, and the message was clear and well communicated. The goal was to encourage those that attended, that they were commissioned by God to fulfill the Great Commission, even though they come from a less affluent part of the world. To let them know that God wants to use them to reach their home countries, but He can also make a way for them to go to the least reached peoples around the globe. Please pray for all those who came as well as their churches as they return with this message, and share it with their congregations.

As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!”

Romans10:15

Alishia was busy while I was gone, with both work and ministry. She is helping with a women’s bible study at the church, providing childcare so that mothers are able to attend. She also has a new job cleaning houses for a friend from church and spends time each week meeting with people and encouraging them. Please continue to pray for us to make connections and bless those around us.

I’m going to be teaching the mid-week service at church until the end of the year. Each Wednesday we’ll be looking at the life of David and learning from his character. Please pray for me as I prepare and teach each week, it’s amazing to get to grow my gifting with this opportunity.

If you’d like to hear more about our calling to Japan, have any questions for us, or would like to become part of our sending team, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Please consider joining us in what God is doing in Japan, there is a link at the bottom that will take you to our giving page.

Prayer requests

• For the mid-week church service that I’ll be teaching.
• For provision and guidance as we plan our move to Japan.
• For Alishia’s citizenship process to go quick and smooth.
• Praise for a great trip to Peru and all the Lord did during the conference.

Here in northwest Montana, summer is starting to fade and fall is fast approaching. I wanted to take some time and update you on what our summer was like and what we have planned for the fall.

After spending January through April in Japan, May in California, and June in Montana, July was spent with Daphne at my parents’ farm in Nebraska. We always enjoy our time there; the pace of life is slow and we get to have experiences unique to rural America. While the cliché of the dimwitted, more harm than help, farm hand is proven true by my efforts; I look forward to the opportunity to do farm-work every time we’re there. We were able to experience county fairs, summer storms, hay harvest, and livestock wrangling. The time went by quicker than I would have liked, but it was sweet while it lasted.

We extended our time there by a week when my grandmother passed away at the start of August. While we will miss her, and her prayers she faithfully lifted up for us, we are thankful to spend an afternoon with her a few weeks prior to her passing. She was ready to be with her Lord and it wasn’t so much a time of sadness as a time of thankfulness for her and her life. It gave us an opportunity to see the entire family, some we wouldn’t have gotten to see otherwise so we were very thankful for that.

We are now back in Montana and have a busy fall ahead of us. At the end of September, I’ll be going to Peru with a team to help facilitate a missions conference. I have also been given the opportunity to teach at our church here in Whitefish. We are also praying about attending a conference in November, as well as continuing to build our prayer and support team. Please keep us in your prayers for all of these events.

Our departure date for Japan is January 29, 2024. This will be our long-term move and we’ll have a lot of preparation ahead of us to get ready. We’ll be getting our visa and housing sorted out in the next few months as well as deciding what to take with us and what to ship over later. It will also be a short-term trip for several other people that feel called to Japan as well. Alishia has been working hard planning that trip and we are excited to see what kind of team the Lord is building. We are also working on getting Alishia’s US citizenship, please pray that it goes smoothly.

If you’d like to hear more about our calling to Japan, have any questions for us, or would like to become part of our sending team, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Please consider joining us in what God is doing in Japan, there is a link at the bottom that will take you to our giving page.

Prayer requests:

• For Jeff’s trip to Peru in September.
• For provision and guidance as we plan our move to Japan.
• For Alishia’s citizenship process to go quick and smooth.
• Praise for a wonderful summer with Daphne and all the family that we were able to see.

One of the greatest honors that we have as missionaries, is to share with you what the Lord is doing with His Church in the place that we will be serving. While we couldn’t possibly share with you everything going on in the Japanese church, because we witnessed just a small part of it, we are excited to share the stories that we were privileged to see and hear during our trip.

Alishia sat down with her friend, Shiho, while we were in Osaka and recorded an interview. Most of us don’t have any experience with living in a culture where you don’t personally know any other Christians. Where family pressure makes it difficult to accept what is viewed as a foreign religion, not suitable for a respectable Japanese person. Where the spiritual supports (sometimes crutches) of being surrounded by a body of believers is absent in your desire to walk with the Lord. So, we are excited to introduce you to Shiho and some of her testimony in this video.

As we return to Japan, we hope to be able to create more of these videos. Sharing with you more of Shiho’s story as well as the stories of other Japanese Christians. There are hundreds of these stories in Japan, each one beautiful and unique and encouraging in their own way. The Church in Japan is small, but it is not insignificant. Be praying for the believers there to be powerful witnesses to those around them, and be blessed by the testimonies of what God is doing there.

We are preparing for our return to Japan in Montana at our church. As soon as our monthly support is in place, we are ready to go. In the meantime, we will be leading a short-term missions trip for the church this fall, as well as a trip to Japan for prospective co-laborers this winter. Please pray for us and those that go on these trips with us. We will be in Nebraska with Daphne for July, and we’re very excited for that time as well.

Prayer requests:

• For the church in Japan and the believers there.
• For the Lord to provide for our financial needs.
• For our trips this fall and winter.
• For Daphne and our time with her this summer.
• For our Japanese language learning.

“Moshi Moshi” is what you say when you answer the phone in Japan. We too are answering a call, the Lord’s call to Japan.

Over the last month, since we returned from our vision tour, we have been praying and taking time to digest what the Lord spoke to us. We met with our sending organization and debriefed the trip with them, and we reconnected with friends and developed new relationships. Now we are confident in what we are working towards, and are excited to share that with you in this letter.

First, I want to thank all of you for your prayers and support that allowed us to take this vision tour at all, and for it to be a significant length so we could be confident in what the Lord was speaking to us. We needed the extra time to see where to land when we moved over there as our sending organization doesn’t have an existing work there. Again, thank you for your support that made it possible and for your faithful prayers that were answered each and every day.

The Lord confirmed in us the call to Japan on our trip several times. Through scripture, through longings, through leaders, through peace, and through broken hearts. We do not waiver from that call even after seeing the challenges that lay ahead. We are very thankful that God continues to allow us to be used by Him in this way and we want to be faithful to His leading. We also received new direction as it was clear that Osaka was the place that He would have us land in Japan. When we were planning the trip, we didn’t expect that to be the case, but the Lord knew better. We will be serving with Calvary Chapel Abide and Joseph and Amy Totsis, the missionaries that planted it. They have been in Osaka for 13 years and will help us immensely as we get settled. It’s a wonderful group of believers and we are very excited to be a part of it. Our first couple of years will be focused on language learning so that we can minister as effectively as possible, and we will be working on that before we leave as well.

Our goal is to go at the beginning of next year (2024), but what will we be doing in the interim? We will be having a dessert gathering on May 28, at Calvary Chapel Saving Grace in Yorba Linda, CA at 6:30pm. You are all invited to join us as we share our vision and talk about our trip. If you aren’t in California, we plan to do similar gatherings in Montana and Nebraska over the summer. We will then be traveling to our church in Montana to serve and connect, as well as spending some time with Daphne on the farm in Nebraska.

Please pray about partnering with us financially and thank you for lifting us up in prayer.

Praise report:

• Our trip was successful and the Lord granted us direction for the future.
• The Lord is raising up others to go to Japan that we will work alongside for years to come.
• We have been overwhelmed by the love and support we have received since returning from Japan.

Prayer requests

• For the Japanese churches, that the Lord would sustain and grow them.
• For churches and individuals to partner with us, prayerfully and financially.
• For the Lord to bless our summer with Daphne and for her as she prepares for her senior year of high school.

We have arrived stateside from our vision tour, but returning is bittersweet. We already miss Japan and the Church there. The Lord allowed us to meet so many incredible people and to be a part of His work there, so it’s difficult to leave even if it’s only for a season. Here is a short recap of the end of our trip.

We had the opportunity to help with an Easter outreach at Abide Osaka. Forty kids, most unsaved, came to our event where the Easter story was shared in Japanese, games were played, and we had an Easter egg hunt. Many of the children’s parents came and heard as well, and it was a wonderful time.

Alishia was able to record an interview with one of the young Japanese believers, Shiho, that we will edit and share with you in the future. It’s really the relationships, like the one Alishia made with Shiho, that had the biggest impact on us during the trip. We were able to be a blessing to them just because we were there. Their culture casts them aside, so it ministers to their soul to be able to have real spiritual conversations with believers.

As for now, we are in California until the end of May, and then we head to Montana. The Lord confirmed the call in us on this trip and made our next steps clear. We are very excited to share all of that with you in the coming weeks so be watching for our next update. In the meantime, here are some photos of our trip.

Prayer requests

• Praise the Lord for a successful trip and the opportunity to seek His will for us in Japan.
• For the Japanese believers and the missionaries on the field. It’s a lonely path believing in Japan and the enemy attacks at every turn.
• For partners in the gospel, that would be able to help meet our needs so that we may return to Japan soon.

Wow… what a time we have had here in Japan. This is Alishia, I decided to try my hand at writing a newsletter to say hello to you. So any lack of the normal flair is because the author is not Jeff. 

God is so faithful. This time has been very fruitful. Thank you everyone that have aided us though prayer and support. 

When we came to Japan for a three-month vision trip, it was under the request of Pastor Chizuo. Pastor Chizuo is a senior pastor here in Japan that is looked to by all the Calvary pastors to help guide the whole Calvary movement here in Japan. He had asked us to be here for three months to make sure we were really called. So, we heeded his advice and came for three months. We are so glad we did because God had a different plan for us than what we thought. 

When we first came to Japan, we had a road map in our head of what we thought the next 10 years of our life would look like. We had made a list of three locations of where we thought we would end up initially when coming here. One location was Abide Osaka (a Calvary Chapel pastored by Joseph Totsis), we really didn’t know what to expect. What we found was a vibrant group of believers with faithful leadership. Osaka is the hottest of all the locations we visited, and I don’t handle the heat too well. So I was hesitant to fall in love with the church there, but fall in love we did.  

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to hear you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

We first visited them with Pastor Trent and Debbie in the beginning of February. It was one day there and back on the shinkansen (bullet train). But that day sparked the idea of us joining them, and not just for us, but for them also.

A month later we visited them again with Rob Douglass (Founder of ends of the earth ministries) and James Flores (Leader of Frontline Missions), and once more the Lord tied everyone’s hearts together.  It was so incredible having our leadership on the ground with us to see what we were seeing and to minister to us and to the missionaries here in Japan. Japan is a very hard place to be a missionary because it is a very isolating environment, so the support from the states and people visiting is so refreshing and needed for the workers here. The Lord has allowed us to see first-hand how hard it is to stay on the field here as well as allowed us to be part of His refreshment for long term workers right now. 

We move forward in our calling with our eyes open. Pastor Chizuo was accurate on how long it would take for us to really now if this is what the Lord was calling us too. We know the road ahead is one of endurance and steadfastness. We are encouraged by all the love and support from you. Please continue to be diligent in prayer for us and the missionaries over here knowing it is a lonely place to minister. I pray, Lord willing, one day you may come to Japan and be used as the Lord’s refreshing of us and experience this unique place. 

We will be back in the states at the end of April and will be going into support raising mode, we ask that you pray about being behind us financially. We are in need of monthly partners. We are not asking you to support us in a large sum, but a comfortable amount that would not burden you, but would keep you engaged in what is going on in Japan. 

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21. 

It is going to take an army of Gods people to see Japan reached. Please pray about being part of that army and finically supporting us on a monthly basis