Well, it is that time again to reflect upon the last year to see what has happened. It is good to reflect upon the past year to remember our strengths and weaknesses, what we have learned, and what experiences we have had so that we may learn going forward.
Verse for the Year – “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:” - Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV
2022 was an intense year for many as the infamous Covid pandemic was wrapping up. At the beginning of the year we returned to Georgia (USA) only to immediately catch Covid for the first time. Our whole family became sick and quickly recovered with the exception of myself who had a strong sickness for a week and a slow recovery for about a month after with gradual lung healing. It was certainly memorable and we were blessed to have the Omicron variant which was said to be weaker than others. We finished up our time in America and returned to Japan in early March. At that time Japan was very strict about entry and it took us 4 hours to get through all of the entry requirements. Fortunately we ordered a van to pick us up and take us to our apartment ahead of time as no public transportation was allowed due to Covid restrictions. Quickly in the next month we moved to secure a new rental home, moving to another city in West Tokyo about 30 minutes away for the purpose of starting a new ministry. During this time we were able to lead one Japanese woman to the Lord of whom we had prior connections with, who is still attending church to this day in our previous city.
After much prayer the previous term we decided upon this new location and moved to settle there to begin a new term and ministry knowing that Japanese people take a long time to form connections. Though my Japanese is still at an intermediate level we believed it was time to get started making connections gradually while still learning. To this day I still study daily and am in the process of gradually increasing my Japanese skills. This will mark year 7 of studying Japanese from 0 and is a good reminder that Asian languages take a lot of hard work to learn! Moving to a new area has taken some time to adjust as well as meet new people. We prayed and are continuing to pray to meet people that we can connect with to lead to the Lord and help grow. We are doing a church plant from 0. We are grateful that one Japanese family has decided to move out and be a part of the new work. It has been a slow start, however we have seen one new man get saved and are working on helping him to grow in his new faith.
Ministry in Japan is very slow, so during this time I started to invest an hour a day doing online ministries including Japanese Twitter targeting suicidal people and world-wide soul-winning live online which has led to 111 new salvation confessions, 87 affirmations of salvation, and 54 people who were very close to salvation. It has been amazing to see God work on so many souls across the globe including Atheists, Muslims, Hindus, a Wiccan, and New Age people. It has been very eye-opening. Also eye-opening was driving in Japan for the first time, which was a huge change from before. During our first term we walked, biked, bused, and used the train to get from place to place. It has also been good to get back on track with putting out gospel tracts around Tokyo. For this year we were able to get 31,540 Japanese gospel tracts out to various houses and apartment complexes. Not to mention various tracts in other languages as well. We pray that many seeds would be planted, watered, and harvested. This year was also one in which I started to teach English again to some Japanese students using the Bible. We pray that they would be open to the gospel as they learn.
Japan has slowly transitioned out of Covid regulations into a less restricted society. However, to this day people wear masks everywhere and buildings require masks to enter, so it has been slow coming. There have been new Covid outbreaks impacting most of the population as well, so the Japanese have been cautious. This has certainly impacted our ability to evangelize since many are afraid of foreigners for this reason. We pray that Japanese people would open up more so that we can share the gospel with them. Thank you for your prayers this last year!
