September 2025
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Greetings. This is Rev. Jeffrey Mensendiek, mission co-worker serving with Common Global Ministries in Japan. I am writing to you to see if your church is interested to join in the Christmas Card Project with our partner churches in Japan this year. This project was started in 2012 following the great earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that devasted northeastern Japan. At the time, I was serving at the Emmaus Center in Sendai, and my workplace became a national disaster relief center for our partner church, the Kyodan. Global Ministries was deeply involved in working with the Kyodan to meet the needs of the survivors, and accompany the churches that sustained damages. We have strong historical ties to the churches in Japan, and this project represents an effort to connect our churches through prayer during the Advent season. For the past thirteen years we have had an average of about 40 UCC and Disciples churches join in reaching out globally through prayer. Even as we are overwhelmed by effects of natural disasters, pandemics, and or political unrest and division, God calls the church to reach out and care and connect in the name of Christ.
If you decide to participate, I will be asking you to do two things during Advent. First, to send a Christmas card to one or two churches in early December, and second, to lift these churches up in prayer sometime during the Advent season. Once I have a firm count of the number of churches participating, I will match you with Japanese churches and let you know the contact information. If you have participated in this project before, I will be sure to match you with the same churches that you have had before. Our Japanese partners have asked that we continue this project, and I am encouraged to see how the Holy Spirit is leading us in new patterns of partnership. Just this year in January you will remember the wildfires that swept through the Los Angeles area. When our partners heard that one of our UCC churches was burned down they collected an offering and sent it to the Southern California Nevada Conference UCC. I was deeply encouraged by this gesture, and it showed how our ties across the seas can be truly uplifting.
Please discuss this with your congregation and let me know by November 1 whether you will be participating or not. I will then send you the contacts and necessary information pertaining to the partner churches by November 14th (FRI). This should give you time to prepare the Christmas cards to send off by the beginning of December. Also let me know who will serve as the contact person at your congregation, and the contact address. If you need stories and information from Japan please go to my blog at (http://jeffreyfromjapan.blogspot.com/). The material is not so new but it will give you a sense of the struggles the churches faced during the great disaster. I will be in touch with the chair of the World Mission Committee of the Northeastern Conference of the UCCJ, to have him write a letter for you updating you on some of the challenges facing the churches in Japan.
This Project aims to connect partner churches across the ocean by reaching out globally through prayer during the Advent season. It is a way to hold on to the ties that bind us in Christ, and to say “We care. We remember you. Your lives matter.” In the spirit of mutuality, I pray that this small gesture of solidarity will be a sign of hope for churches both in the US and Japan. When writing, please do not hesitate to mention your prayer concerns for what is happening in and around your congregation. In this way we share in the mutuality God’s mission.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Jeffrey Mensendiek (Tokyo, Japan)
PS: We are hoping that most churches in Japan will respond in kind with a card or letter, but in some cases I have heard that there was no response. Please know that does not mean they do not appreciate our gesture of solidarity and connection.