2025 Update

Waiting: Acceptance to Reaching Japanese Together’s Rural Church Planter Training Program

Fall of 2024 marked the beginning of the application process to Reaching Japan Together, and in May 2025 (7 months of waiting!) we were officially accepted as missionaries, and fully set up to begin fundraising in September. While cross-cultural long-term missions has always been on our hearts, the waiting period did provide a lot of space for emotional and mental preparation for our family, and the acceptance letter for Ali really made the reality of moving to another country ‘sink in.’

Transition: Kids’ School

2025 was the last year our children attended the private school on the church campus we live at. Due to the merging with a large preschool in the Summer of 2025, the doors were closed on the elementary program. In preparation for Japan, we enrolled Zane and Alora in the full-immersion Japanese Track at the International School in Portland and began homeschooling Davidicus, Reseda and Ozias. The kids enjoy being able to work at their own pace, time together at home, as well as helping with ministry projects on campus.

Good things: Jesus

This last year, working as a therapist, I have had the joy of seeing God’s healing, restoration and equipping in peoples’ lives and marriages. I have also seen His provision and empowerment for speaking in church service and doing street evangelism, where a friend and I go out weekly to share the gospel in the community. My salvation was and will forever be the best thing in my life (my wife and family second), so it’s an incredible gift to be able to share the miracle of relationship with God through faith in Christ with others, first in our family and then to the ends of the earth (which we hope to do in Japan soon, which has been known as ‘the end of the earth’!). Fundraising for monthly financial partnerships can take a long time, but if everyone who received our Christmas letter—about 100 people—determined to give just 1 or 2% of their household income monthly starting in January, we’d likely be able to apply for visas and be in Japan in the spring, which would be incredible!

If you don’t have this amazing miracle of relationship with God, I love to help others share and grow in it. Please reach out to me or Alicia if you ever want to talk! And for all of you who are saved to know Him, we pray along with you that the Lord Jesus bless and keep you, and give you peace, this season and always!

Greetings from all of us in Oregon!

Hopefully our next Christmas letter we can say ‘Greetings from Japan!’ :)

2025 has felt full. Full of good things, transition, and waiting.