Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Power of Community

Cadence has a "mission verse"...."We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us."  I Thessalonians 2:8

African Children's Choir - Uganda
We housed the choir while they
traveled Japan and ministered
to the Japanese.
We love this challenge of sharing our lives with the military community. As we share our lives, we build community with one another. What does community mean to you? For us, community is family. A group of people that share their lives with one another, they share their dreams, their failures, they support one another in good times and in bad, they accept one another and love each other to grow and change in all areas of their lives. Community impacts other communities. In the short time we have been in Yokosuka and serving at the Lighthouse, we have experienced the power of community.

We have seen people sacrifice their Saturday afternoon to go help a pregnant women whose husband was at sea and she needed some yard work done. We have seen people sacrifice their time to love a group of children from Uganda. We have seen people give money to meet the needs of another community in Cambodia. We have seen people reach out to their co-workers who are going through a difficult marital situation. This is sharing your lives with one another, this is sharing the gospel. 
Our folks hanging out with some
international students from a
Tokyo university

We love being the place where people can come and experience community. We have people in our ministry that are single and married, people with kids and people with no kids, people who recently said good-bye to a college-age child, people who have recently said hello to their first child. We have people that have experienced fulfilled dreams and are dealing with the grief of broken dreams. We have the privilege to come along side them all and love this community.

Cathy and Sapphira Jean
For those of you who are on our prayer & financial team, you are extension of this community. People experience a "home away from home" because of people that sacrifice their finances so we can be a community to the military and to the Japanese.  We are so blessed to be a part of the Cadence community, the Lighthouse community and the community of believers!

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