Author: Nathaniel Reutter

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Lives

2018 Highlights

Happy New Year! As 2019 quickly approaches, we reflect on all that happened in 2018. What a year! Here are a couple of the highlights:

WINTER

-We began recruiting and training volunteers for Choose Life (online suicide prevention)
-We worked towards the release our first Japanese/English worship album & videos



SPRING

-Sarah started Japanese Kindergarten while Becca & Anna moved into the 3rd grade
-We launched are Life in Japan series on YouTube, now with over 6,500 views!
-We became renovators as our church moved into its first permanent home


SUMMER

-Choose Life training finished and we launched our suicide prevention chat-line
-We traveled with the whole family to the States and visiting friends, family, supporters and churches in a whirlwind tour
-We opened Paz Coffee Shop in our new location (it works closely with our church and Choose Life) and saw record amount of first time visitors



FALL/HOLIDAYS

-Our cell group multiplied and we began supervising another cell group about an hour from Noborito (where we plan on multiplying our next Paz Church/Coffee Shop)
-Choose Life is brining in its first visitors


We thank you so much for your faithful love and support. This has been a big year a stretching, but we’ve seen so much great fruit. And now in 2019 we look forward to even greater victories and conquests as the church continues to grow and move forward here in Japan. God bless you!

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LIJ Episode Lives

Paz Coffee Shop Grand Opening

Warm.  Inviting.  Refreshing.  Relaxing.  Welcoming.  Renewing.  These are all words to describe the atmosphere that we have created at Paz Coffee Shop.  Our team has been working hard for the opening of this special place, and on September 15 we opened the doors wide-open to this new expression of God’s love towards Japan.  Yes- there are many ways to express God’s love in Jesus towards people, but the expression that we felt works best in the Japanese context is that of a coffee shop.

All the visitors to Paz Coffee Shop made the Grand Opening truly grand!

A coffee shop is a place to enjoy a cup of your favorite drink with great company in a friendly environment.  It is a place to enjoy music and get away from the busy rush of the day.  It is a place for the community to connect and for relationships to be forged and built.  It’s a place to for you and your kids to enjoy.  It’s the perfect atmosphere to host our Paz Church meetings on Sundays and other special concerts and community events.  Yes, this is a place we envision multiplying to all kinds of stations and key points across Japan with some of the best and most inspiring people we know.  Welcome to Paz Coffee shop.  Welcome home.  

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LIJ Episode Lives Update Videos

Furlough: A Summer Homecoming

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Every two years our family embarks on an exciting, unique adventure.  This adventure takes us across the world to visit people and places near and dear to our hearts.  These places — especially these people — mean so much to us — they’re the very reason we can live in Japan and share God’s love here.  This adventure is called furlough, and it’s a chance for our family of 6 to check in and catch up with our loved ones.  

While furlough may seem long to some, and to others it seems like a vacation, it is much more than all of that.  For in the short amount of six weeks, the kids catch up with 2 years of Grandpa/Grandma time, we speak at a different church each weekend, we travel all over the country to make important visits, we update our legal and banking matters, we raise more support and all while dealing with jet lag.  Yes, furlough is far from normal — and the change of pace that is very refreshing at first becomes an impulse propelling us back towards Japan for the next phase of life.  In our newest video, you get a sense of the beauty, excitement, business and adventure that is furlough in our next video.  Enjoy!

We now come back to a very exciting time here in Japan for us as our church is opening a new coffee shop — a place for the community to come, enjoy the BEST coffee around and connect with people full of God’s love.  In fact, upon arriving here in Japan, I (Nate) went off to serve in a weekend retreat our church hosts called “Encounter with God.”  It was such a powerful time and so many of the people who participated felt God’s presence and love like never before.  We are more excited than ever to be a part of God’s move here in Japan!  

Encounter with God Japan — Wow!  What a weekend!

Now we are looking forward to this next week and weekend when we will have the grand opening of our brand new coffee shop.  This coffee shop will be open during the week and serve the best speciality coffees as well as have an all-you-can-drink special blend coffee — a first (as far as we know) for Japan!  Then on Sundays we will hold our church services in the coffee shop itself.  It certainly serves two amazing purposes!  If you live anywhere nearby or here visiting, please stop by!

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Lives Videos

Our Lives in Japan

High-speed trains.  Kanji.  Crowded cities.  Towering volcanoes.  Ancient traditions.  Cutting-edge technology.  Crazy work hours.  International business.  This is Japan.

American.  Brazilian.  Christian.  Modern musician.  Church-planters.  Coffee lovers.  Movie makers.  Multi-lingual.  Family of six.  This is us, the Reutters (pronounced “writers”).

Put these two things together, and you have a interesting combination of cultures — two opposites that compliment each other, that complete each other.  This isn’t just Japan, and this isn’t just about us.  This is about Life in Japan.

Categories
LIJ Episode Lives Videos

Sarah’s Summer Festivals

It’s summertime in Japan — which means summer festivals with dancing and fireworks (Matsuri 祭り), Yukatas (the traditional Japanese summer wear 浴衣) and fun Japanese food. This year was Sarah’s first year to dance, and she was so excited! To add to the excitement Sarah turned 5 years old the week before, so we invited her Japanese classmates to come to our house for an American birthday party — and they all came! We shattered the record of people in our house at once, you’ve just got to see the video below!

https://youtu.be/lYzSSoukGWY

And this last picture I just had to include — it was only 3 years ago that Becca & Anna were dancing in this summer festival, and now it’s Sarah’s turn! Wow time flies — but they all look beautiful together!