1^55

The Mings Family Begin Fourth Year

We are beginning our fourth year of work in Japan with

the Osaka Christian Mission.

Our first services were begun soon after arrival, together

with Howard Davis in Moriguchi City, a suburb of Osaka. Afterwards

the Davis family moved to Nagoya and established their own work
and we continued on in Moriguchi#

y/e continue to meet in a rented kindergarten building,

and in June this year the church w^ill be three years old.
We have baptized around forty fi^e in that area, with the

help of Gasha San, who has been both preacher and interpreter.
Most of these Christians are young people. Some of them

have moved away and some have become disinterested but we have

a group of faithful ones who meet together three times a week. On Sunday morning, we have from sixty to seventy child
ren in Sunday School and on Thursday night the Christians meet
together to pray and study the Bible.
Much of the time Wr Mings has taught in the Bible Semi

nary and that is his main work but since the Seminary schedule
is set up on the intensive plan, he can have some time for language
study and other work.

For two consecutive years we have helped the Davises in

Christian Service Camps near Nagoya, as well as in Tanabe and
Osaka camps. Last summer in camp near Nagoya, three of our young

people from Moriguchi stated their desire to be full time workers

for the Lord.

After dividing our Sianday School into classes, we held a

Teacher*s Training class in our home each Weds, nigjit to prepare

lessons to be given on Simday morning* In these meetings many

interesting things were reported. One teacher told that the

parents were reading the English copies of the Little Beginner

Papers that we gave the children, that they actually told the children to be sure and get a paper each time. Some times they consulted their dictionary to find the meaning of words# This
made us feel that perhaps we were reaching out further with the
Bible stories than we realized.

Last summer, we worked together with other Missionaries and

Japanese in preparing materials and holding our first D.V.B.S.'s

in this area

Before we moved to Hirakata, the Native Evangelist began preach*

ing in three different places in and around this area. He has

baptized somew^jere around twelve in the different places and he

is making plans for extensive work as the Spring v/eather opens up.
There are many villages and towns near by with many thousands of people who do not know about Christ. As far as we know there is
only one church and that is Catholic.

Mingses' New Location

The Ray Mings family moved to their new location in

Hirakata on the 29th. of Dec. We had been praying that

if it was the Lord' s will we could be here to begin the
new year.

Our prayers were answered and we were not only here by i;;
the 1st., but were abliar to begin our services on the first
Simday of the year.

This service was held for adults only or we would never

have been able to have had i t in the house. There were

about seventy adults and this filled up the living room.

Many noisy children were running around in the yard. As

soon as we are ready to take care of them we will have a

special service for the children. Their service will be
held in the basement where we will have separate rooms for
classes.

At first this place was very cold and we were very un

comfortable but little by little we are getting the holes

stopped up and it is becoming a little warmer outside.

We are Just thankful that none of us have been sick and we have had very little colds* We have had to wear lots of
clothes.

Our new address is: Mr. & Mrs. V/. Ray Mings, 1152-3
Nakaburi, Hirakata-shi, Osaka-fu, Japan. Any mail sent to
the old address will reach us, however we want to use this
address from now on.

V/e will continue to work with the Moriguchi church as

much as we can and as much as we feel is necessary, but we

want to gradually teach them to walk alone with their own