January has come and gone in the blink of an eye and I still feel that I am recovering from our winter trip.

This was quite a week in the life of our family and we are still recovering from the weekend. On the picture to the right you see Jonathan and Charis. The “bling” around Jonathan’s neck are the 11 medals he want in the regional academic decathalon tournament. Nine of them were gold including the individual overall metal for his varsity division and the team overall metal. Two were silver including the team “superquiz” relay. He and his team will be representing our area at the Texas state contest on February 22. On the same day, Charis scored 12 points in her basketball game. That is the highest total for someone in the Yabuki family (except maybe my sister, Ann… I don’t remember) ever in youth basketball. On the same day, Timothy completed 1 merit badge in graphics arts with 2 more almost done at the Boy Scouts Weatherford Merit Badge College. (see pictures from January)

We are very proud of all of them. In all their cases, our prayer was the outcome would be the best in moving each of them closest to Jesus no matter what the outcome. We believe God is working through each of these things in developing them and hope it is toward Him.

Also, we are beginning a 40 day prayer and fasting initiative (the first of 4 different prayer initiatives) for Tejas. If you wish to join us in weekly praying with our group for one hour for the next four week during the lunch hour and fasting once a week for Tejas, please let me know. It makes a HUGE difference.

Some quick hits from the week:

• The TCU welcome party, I heard went well. I fell ill that day right before the events. I did drop off some stuff and saw a good group of TCU ICF students setting up, leading, etc. I was very proud of them and the volunteer team who coaches the group including Sharon, Adam, Bennie and Patti.
• The UTA group split into two home groups and it went incredibly smoothly. We met at our home and the home of key volunteers and our prayer mentors Clyde and Mary Lynne Hodson. Each group had around 40 attendees. These combined 80 represent more than we typically had when we were one group and the environment was much more intimate and REALLY fun. Several new  students joined also in the M:28 Bible study on Psalm 19. The application time was really good. Afterwards, one student from Jordan had all kinds of questions about the Bible and what we believe. It was a very good discussion.
• Roy shared at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary three times in the last six days. Seventeen people signed up to learn more about serving with ISI. The numbers weren’t huge but I have been praying that three “core” volunteers for the TCU team might come out of one of the visits and on that very visit, three people indicated a interest level of 5 (out of 5) in helping out with a weekly ICF group. Praise the Lord!