Friends!

How about a little tanka (a short Japanese poem)?

    I know well enough these

    Cherry blossoms will

    Return to dust, but I

    Find it hard to leave

    The trees in full bloom.

There's a kind of ephemerality and beauty to every created thing.  "There is a time for everything," we say, "and a season for everything under heaven."  We come to learn as we get older, of course, that moving between the different seasons in our lives is not always an easy thing to do, change though we must...

Most of you know that I have to return to Japan in mid-March to prepare for the beginning of the Japanese school year (Kari and the kids will be staying in the US a while longer so that the kids can continue to catch up on their English).  I ordered my ticket back to Yokohama by e-mail a few days ago and when the confirmation note came back into my inbox, it hit me with a strange kind of finality.  "I'm really going back! Wow!"

There's no doubt, it's been a good year here in the US.  We've met so many great folks--some of you had been writing Kari and I literally for years while we were in Yokohama.  How fantastic it was to meet you in person!  And of course, to be with family and friends again has been a much treasured gift of God.  Thanks to you all for this rich season of life!

Here are two other big reasons for thanksgiving in our lives:

First, Kari and I have recently put together our Missionary Partnership Team, and we're planning to go through a team orientation with these folks in early March.  For those of you who are still not quite sure what I'm talking about, I'll give you a quote from a recent International Ministries Update, explaining the new Missionary Partnership Network (MPN) model:

"The key to the new MPN approach is to meet the spiritual, emotional and financial support needs of missionaries through close, personal relationships between those who are sent and those who send them.  A Missionary Partnership Network (MPN) includes both congregations and individuals that want to be involved in the work that God is doing through a specific missionary.  Members of the MPN are kept well connected to the missionary and her/his ministry through the efforts of a small core group of volunteers who have made a commitment to become deeply engaged in helping to make sure the missionary is well supported in every sense.  This core group of volunteers, called a Missionary Partnership Team, is a crucial part of IM's pursuit of a hybrid model of missionary support, neither the classic parachurch approach in which missionaries raise their own support, nor the classic denominational approach in which all missionary support is raised centrally.  This hybrid model, pioneered by Eastern Mennonite Missions, meets the overall support needs of missionaries by combining the strengths of a denominational mission society with the energy of grassroots organizing."

Hmmm. Well, that was well put...

Anyway, our MPT members will be:

Rev. Ken Damon, Shroyer Rd. Baptist Church, Dayton, Ohio

Ms. Beverly Keyse, FBC, Painesville, OH

Ms. Jerri Wood, Dorothy Lane American Baptist Church, Kettering, OH

Ms. Julie Paulsen, FBC, Middletown, OH

Rev. Chuck DeRolf, FBC, Elgin, IL

Rev. Tim Chesser, FBC, Delaware, OH

What a great group of people!  Please pray for these folks as they work together as a team to be, in a way, our "intercessors" here in the US.

Second, our need for $15,000 towards a used van is being gradually met.  To date, about $11,500 has been committed to the van fund.  Thanks so much to the following churches whose contributions have already been processed through the Valley Forge office!:

Dorothy Lane American Baptist Church, Kettering, OH

Logan's Valley Baptist Church, Bellwood, PA

Green Camp Baptist Church, Green Camp, OH

FBC, Ironton, OH

Marion Association ABW, Marion, OH

FBC and Annie Richards Circle, Richwood, OH

Calvary Baptist Church, Wilmington, OH

Linwood Baptist Church, Cincinnati, OH

Columbia Baptist Church, Cincinnati, OH

American Baptist Women of the Great Rivers Region

Spinning Road Baptist Church, Dayton, OH

A number of individuals have also generously donated toward this need--thanks so much for your help!  For those of you who would still like to help out contact us at dpdavid@attglobal.net to find out how.

As for some things you can help us pray about:

A couple of weeks ago, I found out that, for the first time, I'm going to have to teach two university-level courses in Japanese this year--"Christianity and Western Culture," and "Christianity and Modern Thought."  They're great courses to be given, but wow--I'm gonna' have to study hard to pull these two off!  The other courses I've been asked to teach will be taught in English (2 in Bible and 4 in English language).  A number of the Japanese chaplains have been faithfully writing us here in the States, and it's good to know our return to Kanto Gakuin is being eagerly anticipated!

Also, pray that Kari and the kids and I will manage living apart for a number of weeks.  This will be a challenge for us, since we've never lived apart for more than a week or two over the past 13 years!

Also, pray for me especially--that I'll have the wisdom to know what kinds of ministry I need to be doing and what kinds need to be left for someone else to do when we return to Japan.  Those of you who know me really well know that I tend to be a pushover when people ask me to do things.  And that makes it easy for me to become overcommitted.  None of you struggle with that, right???  Anyway, pray for me to use discernment in the coming months!  In Japanese culture, once you agree to something, it's often hard to step out gracefully.  Many of you know that Chuck and Judy DeRolf, long time missionary veterans at Kanto Gakuin, worked with a very lively college student ministry called "The Fellowship" for many years.  Pray for Kari and I that we'll know exactly what role we need to play in the development of that group, especially.

Okay, that's enough for now.  Enjoy the blossoms while you have them!  (Or the snowflakes, as the case may be!)

Grace & Peace from the Davidsons,

(or as Pastor Dennis Shultz of FBC, Mt. Gilead, OH says, "the D5")

In Christ,

Dwight & Kari Davidson