Japan Vision Trip April/2017
Thank the Lord, and thank all the brothers and sisters who have supported us, so we are able to take this vision trip to Japan in April. The purpose of this trip is to further help us understand the ministry in Japan so that we can do better with our preparation. Another important highlight was to meet our future church planting team in Japan, we enjoy wonderful fellowship with them. Another great experience is to attend a terrific retreat in the beautiful mountain of Gunma-ken with JBF, Japan Baptist Fellowship, our mission group in Japan.
Thank the Lord for giving me the opportunity to preach a message on Easter Sunday. I was told that many new visitors came that day. A brother (he is Christian, but his wife is not) told me his wife came and listen to the sermon attentively. Although she has visit church before, she doesn't have high interest in the sermon. In my sermon, I used a popular movie "your name" to draw attention. The story is about two young people living in different regions and time-frame, for some special reason, they exchanged their body (they live in each other's life) but later on, the male character knew about a catastrophic disaster is about to happen to the female character, he try so hard to warn her and save her. It was a moving story, it talks about sacrifices and determination. I draw that similarity to point to Jesus. Jesus also knows about the future judgment, so He came to this world, to warn us and call people to repent and put our trust in Him, so we will be saved at that final day. May God continue to work in her heart, so she will know the ultimate savior is Jesus Christ.
Another important purpose for vision trip is to understand the area that we will be serving in the future. Our team leader, Kevin took us a long prayer-walk the community. We visit some community centers and many small parks, and get a feel of what is it like to live in Japan. We also walk to the junction of Kawasaki and Yokohama. The population growth in this area is one of the fastest in Japan. Since there are almost no evangelical churches in this area, we hope to build more churches in this area. We have seen the Mormons and Catholic Church. They both have big building in this area, let us ask the Lord to used us and more Christian to plant Gospel-center, bible saturates church in this area.
This will be our primary ministry area Kanagawa. It is about 40 to 50 minutes by train to Tokyo and about 40 minutes train to downtown Yokohama.
God burden our team leader Kevin, with a church planting vision, called Jujika (the cross) project. Kevin has been serving in Japan for almost 20 years. He understands the challenge and the need in this area. The challenge in Japan is great, and with a network of churches support each other, we believe we will see a church planting movement that will have a lasting effect. God is leading him to start working on the second church plant, sometime next year. We will be serving with him as a supporting team. Hope in the next 10~15 years, we can establish a total of 5 churches. More detail please take a look 2020 vision sharing.
This will be our primary ministry area Kanagawa. It is about 40 to 50 minutes by train to Tokyo and about 40 minutes train to downtown Yokohama.
God burden our team leader Kevin, with a church planting vision, called Jujika (the cross) project. Kevin has been serving in Japan for almost 20 years. He understands the challenge and the need in this area. The challenge in Japan is great, and with a network of churches support each other, we believe we will see a church planting movement that will have a lasting effect. God is leading him to start working on the second church plant, sometime next year. We will be serving with him as a supporting team. Hope in the next 10~15 years, we can establish a total of 5 churches. More detail please take a look 2020 vision sharing.
We visited downtown Yokohama and participated in a worship service on Wednesday. This is the first Protestant Christian church in Japan, it has about 150+ years of history. It was very traditional and does not allow to take pictures, so we took pictures outside. Although Christianity has been introduced into Japan for more than 150 years (Catholicism has been in Japan for more than 400 years, we are not including Catholic history at this time) Christianity in Japan is still not widely spread. There are many historical and cultural reasons. Let us pray for God's mercy on this nation. May God called Japanese back to Him, in this changing times.
One more advantage of this vision trip is to meet with local Christians. We will become their co-workers in the future, it was great to meet with them and learn how their walk with Christ in Japan. Jennifer had an opportunity to visit a sister group. We also visited a kindergarten, which could be the future kindergarten of Abigail or a similar one.
Another day, I visit a language school with my teammates. Seriously, it was quite challenging. They have to learn Hiragana and Katakana (2 Japanese alphabet systems) in one week. I remember back in New Zealand high school, it took us maybe a semester to learn.
The teacher in Japan not able to speak English, so if you have a question, it is hard to ask in English. I can feel the struggle for my teammate. He is working hard learning Japanese right now. I better begin to do more review and try to learn more. You can see all the appliance is in Japanese, Jennifer never learns Japanese before, I begin to work on some basic Japanese lesson with her and the kids. Please pray for us, so we can be diligently and try hard to learn some now.
The teacher in Japan not able to speak English, so if you have a question, it is hard to ask in English. I can feel the struggle for my teammate. He is working hard learning Japanese right now. I better begin to do more review and try to learn more. You can see all the appliance is in Japanese, Jennifer never learns Japanese before, I begin to work on some basic Japanese lesson with her and the kids. Please pray for us, so we can be diligently and try hard to learn some now.
The biggest gain on this trip was attending the JBF retreat, Japan Baptist Fellowship is our mission agency registered name in Japan. There are more than 60 missionaries and families from Canada, the Philippines, Singapore, the United States, the United Kingdom and other places. Everyone is serving in different regions of Japan, and working in different ministry, for one purpose, to spread the good-news of Jesus Christ through out Japan.
We stay one extra day and get to have a deeper fellowship with a veteran missionary, Tom, who has been serving in Japan for 30+ years. He was an engineer from NASA. He designs Rocket Launcher. He was sent by US government to help Japan on their rocket program. However, God touched him, and open his eye to see the great spiritual needs in Japan, so he gave up his high paying job, and become a mission to the Japanese. He serves in the countryside for 30+ years now. What a great encouragement to us.
We stay one extra day and get to have a deeper fellowship with a veteran missionary, Tom, who has been serving in Japan for 30+ years. He was an engineer from NASA. He designs Rocket Launcher. He was sent by US government to help Japan on their rocket program. However, God touched him, and open his eye to see the great spiritual needs in Japan, so he gave up his high paying job, and become a mission to the Japanese. He serves in the countryside for 30+ years now. What a great encouragement to us.
As always, good time passes by very fast. Our 14 days of vision trip come to a close. We don't want to leave if we can just stay that will be great. Why? because we have seen what God call us to do, and the great potential of kingdom advance work in this area. We are eager to move to Japan as soon as possible to work with our team. Although we understand there will be more and difficult challenges, we believe serving the Lord in Japan will be a wonderful journey for our life.
We believe that God is calling His people in Japan back to Him. On the day of our departure, we have to take a train from Musashi-Kosugi station to Narita airport, we encounter mountains of people at the train station. I understand that this is just a mid-size train station. As you can see from the video, there are so many people, how many of them know the salvation of Jesus Christ?
Musashi-kosugi is the area where my team leader, Kevin going to start working on a church plant sometime in 2018. This area has about 120 thousand people, yet no one evangelical church in this area.
Please pray for our team, may God use us to plant a biblical church in this area. Also pray that God will provide for us, so we can move to Japan sooner, and work with the team in Japan.
For more information, please take a look a video made by my team leader. 2020 Vision
We believe that God is calling His people in Japan back to Him. On the day of our departure, we have to take a train from Musashi-Kosugi station to Narita airport, we encounter mountains of people at the train station. I understand that this is just a mid-size train station. As you can see from the video, there are so many people, how many of them know the salvation of Jesus Christ?
Musashi-kosugi is the area where my team leader, Kevin going to start working on a church plant sometime in 2018. This area has about 120 thousand people, yet no one evangelical church in this area.
Please pray for our team, may God use us to plant a biblical church in this area. Also pray that God will provide for us, so we can move to Japan sooner, and work with the team in Japan.
For more information, please take a look a video made by my team leader. 2020 Vision
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Our Church Planting Team in Kawasaki/yokohama area
