Konnichiwa!

Greetings Harvest City Church from the beautiful nation of Japan! I would love to share with you some amazing things God has been doing in and through Life Church and also how Harvest City Church has played a big part in what God is doing here in Japan!

As we get started, let me introduce myself. My Name is Ryan Kaylor and I am part of the third generation of Missionaries in my family to serve here in Japan. My Grandpa came to Japan right after the end of World War 2 and served as a church planter, pastor of a local church, along with being a mentor, leader, and equipper to many pastors here. He just left the mission field 3 years ago after 68 years of service here in Japan. My Dad was born here in Japan and has served the churches of Japan in many roles over his life and has pastored in Japan for the last 23 years loving the people of Japan! So I guess you can say Japan is in my blood!

I have a beautiful family. My Wife Yukie, My oldest son Justin (10), middle son Alex (6), and the baby of the family Grace (2) make up our family. Justin is getting ready for his first school overnight trip with his class next week which he is very excited about. Alex loves watering and watching our small garden of mini tomatoes and herbs grow and can’t wait to get his hands on the tomatoes which are just about ready to start turning red. Grace has just started to find how amazing coloring is and loves coloring with any kind of markers and crayons she can get her hands on! Yukie, my wife and I met at Portland Bible College in America just like your pastors, Chip and Sarah did. We have been doing life together for 15 years and they have been the best years of our life!

13 years ago my wife and I come up to Osaka to help my uncle and aunt, Joel and Kelly Kaylor, pioneer Life Church in 2009. My wife served as the worship pastor and I served as the youth pastor. Very suddenly in 2016, Pastor Joel passed away and my aunt, Pastor Kelly took the role of lead pastor. For the next 4 years she loved and helped the church through this very difficult time. In 2020 Pastor Kelly passed the role of lead pastor to myself and my wife.

During the year Pastor Kelly and I transitioned was when I was introduced by Pastor Kelly to Pastor Chip and to Harvest City Church. These past 2 years, Life Church, my wife and I personally have been so blessed through this relationship with Harvest City Church and your pastor. The books and materials from Harvest City Church have been a blessing to many of our English speaking members along with Pastor Chip coming and sharing directly to our church and to our leaders. We have also been so blessed by the financial gifts you have given the church to help us move from our previous location to where we are now. Your financial gifts helped us be able to get new equipment that we needed as we moved to our new meeting location! Thank you so much for loving and pouring into Life Church. We can’t wait for the next time Pastor Chip can come to Japan and be with us.

The past 2 years have been difficult for our Church as the transition and also the lock downs because of Covid, happened almost at the same time. But even through that season, we saw God work in amazing ways. In 2021, we saw 6 people believe in Jesus for the first time and be baptized. One of those was my oldest son Justin. Yes, I am a proud Papa. We also had 20 people deciding to be planted and become members of Life Church.

We have also seen these past 2 years, a new group of leaders stand up and love Life Church in so many different ways together with us! We would not be able to do what we do without this amazing group of people! Since moving to the new location which is only a 2-minute walk from one of the biggest stations in our city we have seen a new breath of life be birthed in Life Church. We are so awestruck in seeing how God has helped us navigate through this time and has brought us out the other side stronger and we are so excited for this new season God has brought us into.

A very exciting area that God has opened the doors for us as Life Church is to work with two orphanages here in our city these past 10 years. Every month one of the orphanages lets us come and we are able to put on a small kids church service for the kids. Last year we were able to put on a Christmas party for the kids with presents and some simple snacks!

Here in Japan, kids in an orphanage when they turn 18 have to leave the system and there is no support for them after that. Many of the kids fall into prostitution or get involved in the Japanese Mafia, the Yakuza. Over the years we have been working with the orphanages to provide supplies the kids need to start their lives as they leave the orphanage, like beds and kitchen supplies. We are trying to build more relationships and connections with the graduating students as to keep helping them even after they leave the orphanage.

In our church one way we have found to be an effective way to reach, not just to our church family but our friends and other people we know is through creating video content. Teaching, encouraging, and talking through difficult topics that we deal with here in Japan as men, women, and as Christians. We are hoping to grow this area and to be able to reach more people and touch them with the good news of the Gospel and give them hope and a purpose to life for! We are hoping for creative ideas, connections, and people in our church to come alongside with us and develop life-giving and God-centered content!

Pastor Chip Kawalsingh asked if we have any needs both personal and as a church and we would love for you to pray about and if you feel called to give toward these needs we have.

Personal need: We are needing to upgrade our personal car as it has served us well but it has come time to change cars as we don’t just use this car for our personal use but also for church related events too. Taking people places and moving equipment back and forth.

Church need: We are needing to upgrade our projector as we will be moving to a bigger room as the room that we have been using at the hotel we meet at has started to not hold us any longer. Also Yukie and I are hoping to hire, part time, a person in our church to help us with many of the tasks it takes to run the church.

Thank you again for reading this and I hope this has encouraged you and shown you that Our God Is truly amazing and we serve an amazing and mighty God!

Much love from your family in Japan

Ryan and Yukie Kaylor

If you would like to check out what Life Church Osaka is doing, please visit their website at lifechurch.jp.