The world is wrapped in the throes of a pandemic. We have been limited in our contact with friends and family. The beaches, the parks and other public gatherings are either limited or prohibited. People seem to be more on edge as racial and political tensions have passed the boiling point. Even the aloha state of Hawaii has some words for visitors:
With all the social distancing being required, how do we fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ?
The answer? Virtually, of course.
Thankfully, due to available tools such as Zoom, StreamYard, WhatsApp, YouTube and others, we are able to continue in our proclamation of the care and provision of Jesus to those in Brazil who are affected by anxious moments caused by the pandemic. Since meeting in April with denominational leaders, I was able to move forward with a smaller task force of younger Brazilian pastors to establish a two-week summer program. (This was shared in my last post).
I rejoice to report that thanks to your prayers, the JEMSWEEK program was a wonderful success. It was an expression of God's love for Brazil. God was favorable to us as two separate speakers shared messages, laying foundations for faith, and to provide encouragement to those who may have been struggling with the emotional load associated with the pandemic, social isolation and quarantine.
Thanks to all of our Brazil pastors' task force members for their investment of time and talent. I am especially grateful to Pastor Alexandre Okamoto, of the Brazil Holiness Church, for the application of his technological skill which allowed us livestream the messages over Youtube, using an application called Stream Yard.
Because of this app, we were able to broadcast live to Brazil from Honolulu, with Pat Zukeran, with simultaneous interpretation from interpreters in four different cities in Brazil (Curitiba, Londrina, Campo Grande and São Paulo over four different nights). Just thinking about it now, makes my head explode.
(pictured above on night 4: Pastor Okamoto, our tech guy, the main interpreter, Beatriz, speaker Pat, back-up interpreter, Marcos, JEMS national coordinator, Pastor Maki and PJ. The reason for two interpreters? In case the wifi at one location failed, we would have the interpretation covered. Of course, if Pat's wifi failed, we would have been stuck! We had back-up interpreters in different cities each night, all prepared to broadcast over StreamYard)
With Davy Lin, we did the broadcast from LA. As he is Brazilian, we didn't require such complexity in providing interpreters.
(Pastor Okamoto is pictured as he blessed us with his tech skill, setting up during the pre-broadcast.
Once we were set, he went off-screen and remained offstage to intervene in case of difficulties.
I'm pictured waiting to introduce Davy. Once finished, I went off-screen as well.)
Their messages can be found on Youtube here on the JEMS Brasil Channel
The four messages by Pat Zukeran are interpreted from English, so may be accessible in part.
The two messages by Davy Lin are completely in Portuguese.
The second week of JEMS Week provided our team with the opportunity to offer English classes to Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced students. Many thanks again go out to Pastor Okamoto, who coordinated registration of all eighteen classes. He was able to use an application called Sympla to undertake that huge task of dividing students into their appropriate levels. The task force also worked with JEMS to assign teachers and interpreter assistants for each class, and to provide publicity among the Nikkei churches in Brazil.
Much appreciation goes to Holly Yamagata for undertaking the major responsibility for the recruitment, scheduling and training of our English team. And to be clear, our purpose was not simply to teach English, but to share testimonies and devotional lessons for our students. Through English, we communicated the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Holly and Kaylie lead the children's class, with two Brazilian teaching assistants. Children's faces are blurred intentionally.
Andrew (Formerly Victory Fellowship, currently So Bay Community Church)
and Ester (Toronto) lead the intermediate class with their assistants.
Please continue to pray as summer is not yet over. JEMS is planning another virtual mission with two churches in Paraguay. One church is in the Brazilian-Paraguayan border city of Pedro Juan Caballero and the second church is in the capital of Asunción. The two cities are eight hours apart by bus. Good thing this is virtual!!
Thank you for your prayers and financial support during this difficult time in our history. To learn more about supporting my ministry, please visit: Support PJ
Today's post is dedicated to my friend, Tae Koga,
who passed away from Covid-19 last month.
