Dear Alpine Chapel Family,
Although we are often separated by distances, we can join together in praying for The Alpine Chapel Ministry and Missions.
Please consider printing out this page and praying weekly (perhaps at dinner time) for these Missionary families over the next 12 weeks.
Through your donations to The Alpine Chapel, you are supporting amazing work not only in Telluride but also spreading the Good News of Redemption through Jesus to many people in many Nations. Please join us in praying weekly for these "front line" ministries across the World.
Brian Jones
Evah will be conducting a women’s conference on the 3rd May and have requested prayers for the local women leaders as they take initiative to lead and teach other women for the first time.
Jorum has many preaching and teaching engagements. Please pray for his progress in studies.
Thank you for remembering Roseanne and Adrian in your prayers. Prayers are requested for both their safety and safe passage as they cross borders to their respective schools. Roseanne is doing well in her second year as a veterinary nurse student at the University of Pretoria and Adrian is doing Computer Science at Covenant College. We are truly grateful for God’s educational provision for our children. The biggest attack of the enemy to missionaries comes through challenges faced by our children. Please pray for us and our children. We share Pictures of Smiles because Darker moments in ministry are many. Praise God for the Pain of ministry experienced personally and through our children’s suffering.
Week 2 – Roger & Abi Lowther – Serving in Tokyo, Japan
Perhaps you know someone who would like to experience being a Christian intern in Japan at either Grace City Church in Tokyo, or Community Arts Tokyo. Or perhaps you’d like to visit and worship together with Roger & Abi in Tokyo. If so, e-mail missions@thealpinechapel.com for more information.
Praise: Grace City Church Tokyo celebrated its 15th Anniversary in our new space at Ochanomizu Christian Center on June 8, Pentecost Sunday. We are so grateful for all of you who made this possible by giving to the Grace Tabernacle Project! It’s been quite a journey these past 15 years, which became especially evident watching a presentation of pictures. In many, our children were but now one graduated from college and another is in college. We also remembered how the church faced many challenges but experienced great joy as well. It was wonderful to be able to celebrate together with this community.
Praise: After Aidan’s terrible bike accident on the campus of Gordon College his freshman year, doctors didn’t know if he would live through the night. Aidan missed the rest of that semester and the following as well, but he worked hard and graduated WITH his class! Congratulations Aidan, Class of 2025!
Pray for Aidan as he seeks God’s direction after his summer job ends.
Pray for Eastin’s medical missions internship in Cambodia June 9–July 2 where he will shadow and assist local physicians and nurses at Chenla Children’s Hospital in Kratie
Pray for Coen’s mission trip to New Zealand in July to help a new church plant run VBS camps.
Light of the Village – LOV – https://www. lightofthevillage.org/
The Light of the Village Ministry is located inside one of the most impoverished and violent neighborhoods in the southeastern United States. Our community is plagued with poverty, gangs and violence, however, in Christ there is hope!
In 2001, a “crack house” was transformed by Christ into a place of Christian faith, hope, and love. We are a front-line, hands-on ministry that serves inside this community six days a week offering a variety of programs. This consistent outreach is where genuine relationships are built, and Christ can be shared one person at a time.
Pray for John and Dolores Eads co-founders and directors at LOV. Pray for their safety in this ongoing ministry and pray for the community they serve in Prichard, Alabama.
Feruza is a Bible Translation Consultant working in Eurasia. A bible translation consultant thoroughly goes over the translation with the team, checking for accuracy, clarity and naturalness, and looking for omissions, extraneous thoughts or possible misconceptions.
As a translation consultant Feruza is also involved in training the translators and the exegetical advisors, mentoring professionally the future translation consultants.
Please pray for Feruza and her husband Dave as she travels frequently to Eurasia to meet with the 5 translation teams she is working with. Pray for her safety.
She always has interesting stories:
On my most recent trip, a translator did one of the morning devotionals for the team. He read from Matthew 24 and asked me: ‘Sister Feruza, when do you think the end of times will be?’ After thinking for a few moments, I told him that we don’t know. Jesus himself tells us that. Brother Jordan said that he doesn’t think Jesus is coming soon. He was basing his opinion on Matt 24:14: And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then the end will come.
He said that he feels blessed that the Good News was finally preached to him and that through our work his people will hear about the salvation of Jesus. BUT, he is sure that the end times won’t happen anytime soon, because there are so many nations left who have not heard about Jesus yet.
I tell you this, my friends, because you are an encouragement to us as we persevere in the task of translating the Bible into the languages of people who have not yet heard the Good News. Your prayers sustain us, your financial contributions make it possible for us to keep working, and your words of encouragement spur us on.
Jorum and Evah Mugari – Serving in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
Two of Jorum’s students are completing their MA program with IIIM (https://thirdmill.org/).
They have requested prayers for a successful completion of the program.
Prayers are requested for the successful preparation for the licensing and ordination of 4 candidates for ministry.
Evah and I had an opportunity to be interviewed by video at the Third Millennium Ministries offices. The production of those videos will be incorporated into IIIM’s theological lessons to be used throughout the continents. We are delighted to have made a small contribution to a ministry that has become a resource for worldwide Church of Christ.
Roger & Abi Lowther – Serving in Tokyo, Japan
Praise:
https://www.amazon.com/Third- Culture-Kids-Gift-Care/dp/ 919854800X
On July 1, we launch a new book called Third Culture Kids: A Gift to Care For (Japanese edition). Written by a missionary kid (MK) raised overseas, the English version of this book made a big impact on Yu Fukunaga and his family serving as missionaries in Papua New Guinea. Noting that nothing like it was available in the Japanese language, he undertook the huge task of translating it and found our publishing company, Community Arts Media. We have been working with him for a year now, and we are very proud of the results. Whether for work or ministry, Japanese families who live overseas will find this book tremendously helpful.
Pray for teams, visitors, and four interns this summer who are supporting the ministries at our church, Grace City Church Tokyo. https://www. gracecitychurch.jp/
Light of the Village – LOV – https://www. lightofthevillage.org/
Pray for the Christian Summer Camps
Our Summer Bible Camps are six weeks of Bible study, games, music, sports, skits, crafts, water, and especially, new faces. Each summer, we have the opportunity to share Christ with over 400 children from high-crime, low-income communities while providing them with a safe, positive environment in which to spend their time away from school, all at no cost to the individual. While we are continually strengthening our existing sites, we are also replicating the existing model of our Summer Bible Camp to serve other high-crime, low-income areas. We are currently operating in 3 locations: Alabama Village, Maysville, and Toulminville.
Feruza K – Wycliffe Bible Translation Consultant
Praise: We are also grateful that despite many economic, political and spiritual challenges our translation work in Central Asia and the Caucasus region is continuing.
Prayer: Feruza’s health: a recent diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis has me quite sad. I’m coping with pain with the help of medications, while waiting for the other medication to kick in and start working towards remission.
The K Family – Seminary Training in South Eastern Asia
This family lives and works in a very sensitive primarily Muslem country so they have asked that in general e-mails to avoid their names so I will use their initials A & B. They have been able to work “under the covers” for 10 years.
Please pray for A as he continues to teach in the Seminary helping to train a new generation of Local Christian Pastors and Christian Ministry workers.
Please pray for A as he works with programers and media specialists to take content from seminary courses from the physical classroom to a structured Smart Phone based virtual classroom. This has been a major effort for the past year.
A wrote:
B tested positive for dengue fever. She experienced the worst headaches of her life and was on total bedrest for a week. Thankfully, she did not need to be hospitalized. On the same day she tested positive, my laptop hard drive crashed and I was forced to do all my work for several days using just my cell phone. Needless to say, it was a rough week. We had to cancel our family vacation that was meant to start that Saturday because of B’s illness.
Please pray for their continued safety and health.
Jorum and Evah Mugari – Serving in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
We currently have 45 students going through the Third Millennium ministries Diploma program, 6 Masters students, 3 Presbytery leaders in training through George Whitefield Seminary in South Africa and 4 candidates for licensing to Preach and Ordination. We praise God for the Ordination of Tendai, Xolani, Annu and Mauricio. These elders we ordained last year have all resumed ministry in a remarkable way. Tendai is now heading Reformed University Fellowship for the Presbytery and Xolani continues with both church planting and EFI ministry.
We are also looking forward to the graduations of Nkosana Nyoni and Clayton Kayla with Masters degrees from Third Millennium Ministries. The two gentlemen are our first Masters anticipated graduates. We pray for them to finish well this year in September.
Living Hope Church – LHC
As one of the elders of LHC, I am truly delighted to witness God’s hand in growing a congregation that started only with 9 people to 90. Upon our return from the US, we found that the church has grown even more. We praise God who works wonders without our help.
Baptism: This month I have had the pleasure to baptise Hazel Spence alongside with two adults.
A Wedding: We witnessed the wedding of Aisha and Damian Mudzengerere on the 12th April.
100 Marimba Property Purchase Update: The kingdom Asset- we recently moved into this property that God provided. Its purchase price was $300K and so the story is as following;
Provided to date: $183,000
LHC family target: $30,000
Outstanding amount: $87,000
Pray with us for God’s provision for this Asset.
Roger & Abi Lowther – Serving in Tokyo, Japan
Praise:
https://www.amazon.com/Hidden- Beauty-Seeing-God-Japan-ebook/ dp/B0FBKT24M4
On August 1, we launch my next book Hidden Beauty: Seeing God in Japan.
“Through his artistic sensibilities and love for the Japanese people, Roger brings fresh insights into how God truly reveals his beauty in Japan.”
Pray for effectiveness of teams, visitors, and four interns this summer who are helping the ministries of Grace City Church Tokyo.
Pray for the Japanese who don’t know the Good News of Jesus who are being reached through Community Arts Tokyo. Here’s an example:
“I would like you to try painting on the theme of resurrection,” suggested the illustrator leading a gathering in our home on Easter weekend. One attendee, who for the first time learned about the Christian resurrection at the event, surprised us with her choices: a bottle and a plate of pickles. The bottle, she explained, is a special kind of sake that needs to be aged in a cool dark place for a long period of time. The beauty of the drink can only come out after the bottle is “resurrected” and warmed up. The plate of pickles were nukatsuke, which needs to be “buried” under the kitchen floor for months and then resurrected to bring out their pro-biotic health benefits. It was beautiful to see her trying to contextualize the gospel in community, and we hope for many more opportunities to interact with her about it in the months ahead.”
If you’re interested in reading more stories like this or about how the Lowthers are trying to capture the minds of the Japanese to Christ check out Roger’s webpage: https://www. rogerwlowther.com/
Pray that the Lord will bless the people of Japan through the work of Grace City Church Tokyo and Community Arts Tokyo.
Feruza K – Wycliffe Bible Translation Consultant
You might be surprised to learn that not all of the translators that Feruza works with are Christians. Some of the minority languages she works with have so few Christians that have the educational background to do the work that she will seek out educated non-Christians who want to see the minority language preserved and see the Bible as an important book that has status. Often, these non-Christians will become Christians through the translation effort.
Please pray that the translators’ hearts would be open to the truth revealed in the Scripture and that they would follow Jesus and accept Him as the Lord of their lives.
Praise: Last February Feruza and Dave became Grandparents.
Finally for our BIG FAMILY NEWS: Jude was born to Naomi and Ryan on February 20th! They are all doing well and our joy knows no bounds! We’re thankful that God answered our prayers for a healthy pregnancy and safe delivery. God has shown His faithfulness to us in so many ways, through Dave’s efforts at work for the sake of our family, our kids’ lives full of blessing with college education and jobs and now, a child for Naomi and Ryan, a grandchild for us and a nephew for Jojo and Sam. We don’t take anything for granted!
Please pray for this family that the Lord will continue to shower blessings upon them as they seek to do His work for His Kingdom.
The K Family – Seminary Training in South Eastern Asia
Recently, we’ve had numerous home maintenance issues and the rainy season has persisted longer than normal. While slogging through these challenges, we keenly feel the need for your prayers. Thank you for interceding for us and our ministry—and please don’t stop!
In a recient newsletter A wrote:
Starting on Wednesday afternoon, I have the first of seven (!) dissertation examinations. Four students whom I have supervised are being examined. I have read thousands of dissertation pages written in (the local language) the past few weeks as I’ve been helping my students and preparing for these exams. Please pray that my students would pass and that I would give fair and helpful critique of the dissertations that I’m examining.
Friends, thanks for riding the ups and downs with us. We really appreciate your prayers, your words of encouragement, your financial support, and how you have tracked with our ministry here for almost ten years, reading updates like this one. May the Lord strengthen you as he carries you through whatever trials you are experiencing. It would be an honor to pray for whatever requests you may have, so please don’t hesitate to share with us how you’re doing.
The app development is going well but is behind schedule; please pray for the programming team to make good progress
A will be preaching a seven-week sermon series over the summer break on the topic of spiritual growth; A is hoping that this series will form some of the base material for writing the second course within the app; please pray for God to guide the study and preparation for these sermons