The following post comes from newly approved CBF field personnel, Carson and Laura Foushee. Read the story of their hopes and dreams for the coming year. Click here to support and learn more about Laura and Carson’s ministry.

Preparation. Transition. Unity. It is these things that we look forward to in 2013.

The upcoming year brings lots of change for us as we prepare for our service as Self-Funded Field Personnel in Kanazawa, Japan. We are overjoyed by the opportunity to serve alongside Kanazawa Baptist Church and Toyama Koizumi-cho Church in building relationships with nationals and internationals as we help to grow the Church with our Japanese Baptist brothers and sisters. We look forward to how God expresses God’s self through faithful Japanese followers in worship and community. We also look forward to leading an English worship service, teaching English in the church’s kindergarten and to others interested, as well as sensing where else we may join God on mission in Japan.

There is so much to do as we ready ourselves for such a large move in late summer 2013. We anticipate all of the joys and challenges that present themselves this year as we transition to Kanazawa. We have jobs to finish in Macon, Georgia, churches and individuals to meet with to gain support for our journey, family holiday gatherings to attend before gathering becomes more difficult, and even a new language to learn.

One of the highlights will most certainly be the CBF General Assembly in Greensboro, North Carolina in June. We are excited not only about the opportunity to meet and worship with Fellowship Baptists as you send us to minister in Japan, but it is also special as the gathering occurs halfway between our two hometowns in North Carolina: Raleigh and Statesville. We have the opportunity to celebrate the joys of this great leap in our ministry with many of those who have made significant impacts on our lives. We were both raised and attended college in North Carolina and still have special relationships with those back in the Old North State. It is with great joy that we look forward to this important step in our transition.

The position has been years in the making. The Japan Baptist Convention officially signed a partnership with CBF at the General Assembly in Houston in 2009 and has been actively seeking long-term Field Personnel since that point. We are honored to serve as the very first CBF Field Personnel in Japan, an answer to prayer for many Japanese and Fellowship Baptists. We recently received communication from the pastor of Kanazawa Baptist Church, Rev. Akinori Taguchi, with truly humbling words. He shared in a recent worship service that our appointment became official and told us that a 95-year-old woman in the church, “wanted to see you before going to heaven.”

As we look forward to the upcoming year, there will be much preparation and transition for Japan. There will be times of worry and joy. Tears will be shed with thoughts of physical separation and tears will be shed due to overwhelming support of those around us. Most important to us in the year ahead, we look to the unifying bridge that connects Macon to North Carolina to Japan and to each community that supports us in this great journey of faith. Christ has brought us to this point of preparation and transition, and Christ will most certainly be with us in further unifying Baptists across borders in the months and years ahead.