I grew up in a Christian home, the oldest of eight children. When I was 7 years old I prayed to accept Christ as my savior. At 9 years old my parents began homeschooling me. At 15 my dad became a pastor. At 16 I graduated highschool and began attending a local community college. When I was 17 I went on my first mission trip, spending two weeks helping to build an orphanage in Brazil, this was to be the first of the 10 short term trips I would participate in (so far). At 19 I began attending the Master's college. At 22 I visited the country of Japan for the first time, and met Tomo Takahashi, the daughter of the Pastor of the church we were working with, who would become my fiancee five years later. Incidentally, also at 22 and in Japan I finally realized what it meant to live my life for God, and from that point on things changed drastically.
Up until then I had done a very good job of living my life striving to give to God "just enough" of my time, energy, and most of all my comfort. I had it firmly established in my mind what God could use me for, and what He couldn't. I figured that He could never use me to teach others about His word, or spread His gospel, at least not directly. I didn't like talking with people I didn't know well, and was never comfortable talking to anyone about spiritual things. In order to compensate I decided that I'd try to play a supporting role in the work God was doing.
Computers always came naturally to me, and tackling the challenge of getting them to do new things resulted in my learning quite a bit about them. I was always helping out my dad's friends and our neighbors with their computers. I then learned that many missions agencies have a great need for people with computer skills to work in overseas. I figured this would be a perfect outlet to serve God; I could live overseas as a missionary (something I'd aquired a taste for on the short term trips I'd been on), do something I was good at and comfortable with and no one could question that I was actively serving God with my life. I had it all planned out, that is until that first trip to Japan in the Summer of 2003.
It didn't occur to me until I was on the plane that I was expected to do a number of things I had avoided for most of my life. The aim of our team on that trip was to teach English to Japanese people. Sounded simple enough, but that wasn't our only aim. The english classes consisted primarily of spending an hour at a time with Japanese people looking to sharpen their English skills, simply by talking to them. And we were to try to use that as an opportunity to share our faith with them and invite them to church outreach functions. It was an amazing ministry because Christianity is so foreign to most Japanese people that they're afraid to even step foot inside a church. By having the classes at the church, and inviting our students to attend church functions they had the opportunity to see what Christianity was actually about and a chance to hear the gospel first hand. In fact this outreach that our team was going to do was the largest annual outreach for the church we were helping. In the subsequent trips I've been on I've been able to see the fruits of that outreach and the impact that our team and others had on the lives of some of the people there. But as I sat on the plane to leave, this was not what was on my mind. Rather I was thinking about fact that I was going to have to carry on conversations with people I didn't know, share my faith with them, and talk in front of lots of people about the Bible. I was in way over my head.
Two weeks into the trip I found myself spending more time in prayer and in God's word than I ever had before. Up until then most of the time I spent reading God's word was done out of habit and duty. At home it was done out of necessity, but on that trip I could not do what I was was supposed to be doing on my own. I remember reading through Matthew at the time when the words of Christ in Matthew Chapter 17 verse 20 changed my entire perspective on the trip.
"For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."
God was asking me to do things that I had previously considered impossible for me to do. I was being asked to move mountains, and I didn't feel up to the task. After reading that I finally stopped trying to avoid the things God was giving me to do. I finally stopped making excuses about how I couldn't do it. I gave in, and trusted that God had not brought me half way around the world to fail, that if he brought me here then surely He would carry me through. The next four weeks were four of the most amazing in my life. I saw God work in so many ways, that I was forced to re-evaluate my entire life plan. I became excited about sharing what God was teaching me and found God use me to bless many people.
After I returned home, and started looking for more ways I could be used by God. An opportunity arose for me to lead our church's highschool youth group, so I trusted God and took it. Later an opportunity arose to lead a short term trip to Romania, so I took it. Then three more opportunities came to return to Japan, so I trusted God and took them and each time I felt more and more strongly that this was where God was calling me. Seeing the great need for missionaries there, and seeing that I had nothing to prevent me from going, I trusted God, and joined SEND international in June of 2007.
Somehow through all that, Tomo kept popping into my thoughts. I met her on my first trip to Japan in 2003, but at the time she was only 17, and I didn't anticipate ever returning. Through the years however, I kept coming back, she kept maturing, and we kept in touch, until in September of 2007 she came to study at UCI for her Junior year of college. I was slightly amazed to find myself living twenty minutes away from her, after being just recently appointed to go to Japan as a missionary, both of us single, and both of us with a desire to live in Japan and reach out to the Japanese people. We began dating shortly after that, and in May of 2008 became engaged. We are planning to get married in May, 2009. Currently Tomo is back in Japan finishing her senior year at ICU in Tokyo. After we are married, Tomo plans come to the US and also join staff with SEND, and we will continue raising support until we have enough for both of us to return to Japan. We now have a departure goal of Summer of 2010.
And that brings us up to date. Here I am, still learning, still growing, still following wherever God leads, excitedly and expectantly raising supoprt to go serve Him in Japan and reach out to a people in desperate need of an introduction to the God of the Universe.