2018: Year in Review

Well, it is that time again! How quickly the time flies! This April 2019 will mark our two year anniversary here! Looking back on the year it is apparent that we have gone through a lot of changes as we adopt to a new lifestyle in Japan. The theme for 2018 seems to follow closely with the following passage:

“...For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” - Luke 12:48 KJV

The overall theme of the passage concerns a parable of Jesus talking of how various workers spent their time in service of their master. Living here as a missionary full time now for close to two years has made me understand the gravity the teachings of this parable. In light of the pressures to learn a complex language, the burden of seeing a great mass of lost souls, and the great resources invested into my family to do this work, I can with integrity say that our family has put forth an 'honest work for an honest wage' from our master. A year of work fruitful for the Lord has been far more enjoyable than other years of my life spent on my own foolish pursuits! The following information is for the purpose of understanding the situation here in Japan, so you can pray for it better!

Concerning the gospel tract ministry, in this last year, according to my records, a very conservative estimate of over 70,000 Japanese gospel tracts have been put out around the Tokyo area. Mostly we have been concentrating on apartment complexes as this is where most Japanese people live. Although it is legal to do this, it can seem like a risky venture at times. I have experienced some great protections from God to get into apartment complexes as well as having the exact number of tracts needed to completely cover an apartment complex without prior knowledge of an area on multiple occasions. I have also experienced a lot of hostility and even being yelled at a few times! 'Tracting' can be accomplished by taking about 30 to 45 minutes each day to put out about 250 to 500 tracts on my way to language school early each morning. Many thanks and support need to go to Chick Tracts and Fellowship Tract League for shipping these tracts free of charge. If you want to support a ministry that actually gets good gospel tracts to missionaries around the world for free, please support them! By teaming up with our Japanese friend, we have completed translating two of the Chick tracts relevant to Japan into Japanese. We really can't know what the full results of the tract distribution are, as it is by faith, but my statistics of website views indicate that about 1% to 5% of the tracts put out on any given week will yield a website view. This has also been a year that I have also purposefully focused on reaching English speakers, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Chinese through the use of gospel tracts and websites. Please pray for all these people to become born-again believers and connected to good Bible-believing churches and believers! 70,000 is nothing compared to the 38 million that live here in Tokyo. Please pray for more workers for the harvest!

Last January 2018 I was in the middle of a winter session of language school and have been continuing to consistently study ever since. I have gone from having a hard time understanding what was being said to me at all to being able to understand about 30% as well as a great majority of basic communication. Learning a language full-time has taken its toll on us as a family as I am often away studying. However, it is better to put the time in now early on with young children than to struggle later. I have easily put in over 1000 hours of language study this year in addition to the 500 hours from last year. I am in the intermediate level of understanding as of the writing of this blog post. According to some statistics it takes roughly 2200 classroom hours to learn Japanese! Please pray for me as well as my family during this time!

Part of a missionary life is being a host to many people. Over the last year we have had many people come visit us from the USA and elsewhere. However, most of our personal ministry also involves having Japanese people over to our house for meals, bible study, and fellowship in general. This includes our teachers, neighbors, classmates, and those we've met through church ministries. Even though the Japanese culture does not allow for an 'open-house policy' we have maintained our American sentiments by allowing our house to be open to visitors. We have also met with people in public places to discuss spiritual matters in the hope of leading to a Bible study. Much of my wife's ministry has been in meeting with people in public or having them over to the house. Generally we try to focus most of our energy and prayers intently on three main people each to keep matters simple. After reading Master Plan of Evangelism a few years ago we thought it wise to follow Jesus' model in spending most time with three closest disciples. In reality it is easier to focus energy on less people.

Over the last year we have been able to get to know people at the church very well. It has been nice to build relationships and gain insight into how a Japanese church operates. As I learn how to speak more it will be good to have this relationship when it comes time to do a new church. Some of the men have become eager to help me learn Japanese as well as knowing about how to help with a new church. The last time this church did a church plant was in 1990, and that church became self-supporting in 2004. My wife has been involved in helping to teach Sunday school as well as doing art projects for the church when needed. We also were asked to be the speakers for the Sunday School mission conference this last year and my wife will be in charge of directing it this year. In relation to the church we have traveled to a few other areas to encourage, as well as to speak and teach in a summer camp. We hope to be able to travel more to see this country in the future when necessary and to put out gospel tracts along the way!

I have spent a lot of time talking about 'doing tasks', but I also want to share about 'being'. We have been concentrating on doing daily devotionals whether that be reading/praying together daily or listening to devotionals done by others. This has also been a year of learning about God a lot as I have been able to read a lot on my 45 minute train trips in and out of Tokyo for school as well as watch sermons on the off time. The longer we are here we realize that there is a lot to receive in this humbling process of learning a new culture. We have been able to spend some time together as a family, which has been nice. Please pray for us to be strong as a family as we are finishing up year two. On average missionaries quit japan after about two years!

This year has been a good one and we thank first and foremost the Lord Jesus Christ followed by our supporters who have generously allowed us to be here to represent the Lord. We look forward to the next year as well as a new baby to be due in late June! We want to publicly thank everyone for their prayers, support, and encouragement! God Bless!