Articles

Support Raising Schedule

David — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:58:00 GMT

I'm writing this on Thursday, February 21, 2008. It'll be interesting to look back on this and see what God did.

It occured to me that some people may not know the ins and outs of "Support Discovery" (as it's euphamistically reffered to). So here's how it works. I need to find people to promise to support me on a monthly basis. In order to leave for Japan, I need to have $4,091 of monthly support. That means that each month, churchs and individuals have to be sending SEND $4,091. This is not my salary. My salary would come out of it, but it also covers ministry related expenses, housing allowance, travel, and administrative costs. In addition to that I also need an estimated $71,026 up front to cover the cost of language school, moving to Japan, equipment, support raising expenses, getting me set up with a place to live, etc. etc. I anticipate this will drop somewhat, still, it needs to be raised.

My focus is currently raising monthly support. This is the more the challenging of the two, because it is easier to comit to giving once than to comit to giving once a month. Also, people who agree to support me monthly are asked to begin doing so while I am still here raising support, as their monthly support will go into my outgoing fund. So we kill two birds with one stone. Anyways, with all that useful information, I now present my support raising goals. These are goals which I will be praying for, as well as trying to meet. So God, me, and anyone else He brings to partner with me will all be working together on this.

Basically I'm breaking it down like this: I want to have 100% of my support raised by the end of June, 2009. If you take January 1, 2008 as the start, that's 5.5% per month. 1% of my monthly support is $40.91, so I'm looking to get an additional $225 of promised monthly support each month. So, here's my support raising goals:

Current Support as of July 23, 2008: 19%
Date	Goal	Actual

March 1 2008	11%	5%
April 1 2008	16.5%	7%
May 1 2008	22%	13.5%
June 1 2008	27.5%	13.5%
July 1 2008	33%	13.5%
August 1 2008	38.5%	15%
September 1 2008	44%	19%
October 1 2008	49.5%	20
November 1 2008	55%	21%
December 1 2008	60.5%	22%
January 1 2009	66%
February 1 2009	71.5%
March 1 2009	77%
April 1 2009	82.5%
May 1 2009	88%
June 1 2009	93.5%
July 1 2009	100%

Why Japan?

David — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:08:00 GMT

I am often asked why I want to go to Japan. When people think of countries that need missionaries, Japan is often overlooked. Many will think of China because the Chinese government persecutes Christians, or many will think of Africa because of the poverty that is rampant there. But Japan has neither religious persecution, nor poverty. In fact they are among the wealthiest nations on the planet, and like the U.S. there are no restrictions on religion. One might assume that since there is no political obstacles to the gospel, and since the Japanese people don’t need any physical help, that there is not much need of missionaries. However this assumption could not be further from the truth.

China, with all it’s religious restrictions and persecutions finds that between 3% and 4% of its population is estimated to be Christian. This low percentage certainly illustrates the need for more Christians to go to China as missionaries, however Japan’s Christian population is far lower. Japan is estimated to be about 0.7% Christian. Given the difference in the size of the populations that means that China has roughly 50 times more Christians living in it in total than its island neighbor. In Japan there are 7 Christians to every 1,000 non-Christians. This means that the Christians in Japan are faced with a truly overwhelming task in reaching the lost in their country. Also this means that the Japanese people have little concept of who Christ is. The average Japanese person knows as much about Jesus Christ as the average American Christian knows about Buddha.

I’ve seen the spiritual void in Japan. I’ve walked the streets of Tokyo watching millions of people trudge through their lives with no hope and no purpose beyond their own comfort and survival. By and large the Japanese look to their own native religion as superstition, and their new god is materialism; the pursuit of wealth. Though Japan has one of the lowest murder rates in the world, tragically it has one of the highest suicide rates. However I have also witnessed the hope that Christ brings to these same people. I’ve been blessed to visit some of the churches in Japan, and see incredible difference Christ makes in their lives, and I’ve seen how God has used missionaries to be a large part of starting new churches and calling people to Himself through the proclamation of His gospel. Yet with only 0.7% of the population saved, there is much more work to be done in Japan, and many more people are needed to do this work. I believe that God is calling me to be a part of what He’s doing there, and that is why I am planning to go to Japan.

Biography

David — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:01:00 GMT

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.