God planted the seed of becoming a missionary a long time ago. I came to America when I was young and was placed in a Christian home. This was my first exposure to Christianity. I became a Christian because of my experience in living with a Christian family, and when it was time for me to leave I felt in my heart that I wanted to come back to work here. The idea became clear when Covenant church invited me four years ago to visit them. I realized how many Japanese were living in this area with no pastor that spoke their language.
Our ministry is an outreach to the Japanese community. We are not here to establish a Japanese church, but to assist the existing American churches to reach out and do missionary work in their own community. We are here as NAJO and that enables us to visit and assist many local American churches as well as smaller Japanese groups of Christians that are meeting in their homes and churches.
We see God working in amazing ways.
We did not know how receptive the Japanese would be to hearing the Gospel, but we have already started a new Bible class with several women attending. These women are not Christian, but are eager to learn about God. We have various classes that teach English, fitness and crafts in the church and these classes are very well attended. These classes give us opportunities to meet many people and become part of the Japanese community . Many of the women we meet and talk to are very curious and open to hearing more about Christianity.
We would ask for prayers for continued opportunities to invite and expose the Japanese living here in Michigan to the Gospel.
We also do need help in several ways. First we need families that would be willing to open up their homes to home stay students. My wife and I both became Christians by home staying in Christian homes, and we feel that this is a great opportunity to introduce Japanese young people to Christianity. Second, we need people to volunteer to care for the children, while Japanese mothers are coming to various classes.
Third , we try to provide interested Japanese people with Bibles/tracts, etc. written in Japanese. We have to special order them, and we could always use extra funds for this. Thank you.