Glory Speaking: Missions in Japan

Culture

2008-11-05T20:26:00Z

I've been thinking a lot about the low percentage of Christians in Japan. The latest figure that I'm aware of is from a 2006 survey by the Gallup organization, which found that 6% of the Japanese population claimed to be Christian. However it is also generally agreed that less than 1% of Japanese people attend a Christian church on a regular basis, and so most Pastors and missionaries that I know still believe the long standing statistic of 0.2% is the most accurate.

The question I have is: why? Missionaries have been active in Japan since the end of World War II. That's about 60 years. Despite that fact, it seems that the percentage of Christians in Japan has not increased in those 60 years, and this is not from lack of effort. I've been over to Japan on 5 short term trips, all of which had the goal of at least in part increasing the number of Christians in Japan. More importantly all of those trips were to assist ministries that were going on all the time in Japan, so while I spent a few weeks out of the year there, work was being done by these organizations year round.

Virtually every person I have talked with about Japan has informed me that it is one of the most difficult mission fields there is, that it is a very slow process requiring years of work. Most missionaries involved in planting churches currently plant one or two churches over the course of perhaps a 30 year career in missions in Japan. So why is that? I don't know. I'm not sure anyone knows besides God.
One obstacle to Christianity is Japanese culture. Here is a chain of islands that has been populated since the Stone age, and yet over the course of its long history has had virtually no exposure to God. Some believe that missionaries arrived in Japan in the second century AD, however the first confirmed Christian presence in Japan was not until the later half of the 16th century. It's possible that during that time around 1.5% of the population converted to Catholicism, but this was short lived. A few decades later Christianity was outlawed, and almost totally expelled from Japan. It would not be practiced openly again till the end of the 19th century.

I mention all this because I come from a culture with nearly 2000 years of some form of Christian influence. If you trace western civilization from Rome, we find Rome being heavily influenced by Christianity, and later passing that on to Europe, and from Europe to the New World, and here I am. My culture is largely compatible with Christianity because it's been embracing it for nearly two thousand years. Not so with Japan. Becoming a Christian in Japan means braking from many cultural beliefs; certain national holidays can no longer be celebrated, attitudes towards family have to be changed, customs concerning death and life have to be abandoned and even some traditional communal dances must be abstained from. So many parts of a normal Japanese lifestyle must be modified or abandoned in order to honor Christ.

I don't believe that Japanese Culture is wholly incompatible with Christianity. But I do believe that many parts of it are, and thus it is one major stumbling block to the spread of the Gospel. If this is the case, then Japanese culture needs to find a godly outlet of expression. New songs need to be written which praise God. New dances must be created. God does not want to force a Western Culture upon the whole world, He wants every culture to express itself in its own unique way, to the purpose of praising and honoring Him. I'm really excited to have a Japanese sister-in-law who desire's to compose original Japanese worship songs. I think this is precisely the kind of thing that needs to happen. And I hope that this next generation of Japanese Christians will be able to creatively redeem their culture in a way that honors God and resonates with the Japanese heart. I don't know if that will "fix" the problem, but I think it will help. Be praying for them.

Christmas in Tokyo - Support Letter

2008-09-25T04:14:00Z

First off I’d like to thank you all for your support and prayers as I’ve been in the process of raising support to go to Japan full time as a missionary. It has been a very rewarding challenge, and I anticipate that the challenges and the rewards will continue until I make it Japan for good, Lord willing in 2010.

As I’ve mentioned before God developed in me a heart for the Japanese over the course of numerous short term trips. Each of these trips has been very encouraging, not merely for me, but for the teams I’ve been, and I believe the Japanese we have been able to minister to and touch, both those in the church and outside the church. For the last four years God has opened the door for me to go to Japan with the Jesus Film Project for a Christmas distribution project. In 2004, I was able to introduce the director of Jesus Film’s Short Term department to the church I had worked with previously, and paving the way for an annual partnership each December ever since. Also by God’s grace I’ve been able to return with every single team and assist in any way God enables me to. Once again, the Jesus Film will be sending a team to Tokyo, and once again, if the Lord wills, I’ll return. I anticipate that this will be my last short term missions trip to Japan before moving there to be involved in full time missions.

The Christmas season affords Christians an open door to reach the Japanese with the message of the Gospel. It is a Christian holiday, adopted by a culturally secular, religiously pagan people; the majority of which have little to no idea what it is all about. It is also a lonely time for many young Japanese, because in Japan it is often celebrated as something of a romantic holiday, to be spent with a person’s girlfriend or boyfriend, and those without anyone feel the sting of loneliness even more than usual. It is (perhaps only) in this situation where a string of smiling American faces, wearing funny Santa hats, and passing out free Christmas music becomes an effective ministry strategy. The sheer volume of CDs that we distribute each year is staggering. Last year we distributed over 15 thousand CDs, each one containing not only Christmas music, but also clips of the Jesus Film, testimonies of Christian celebrities, and an invitation to attend a Christmas service at church.

Each year we always hear stories of people who received the CD, and came to the church service, and heard about Jesus Christ for the first time. Last year our team had the joy of meeting a young man who had been faithfully attending church since receiving a CD the year before, and was excited about getting baptized shortly. And for the other thousands who received CDs, it was I believe part of a larger work by God to begin introducing Himself to millions who have never heard of Him before.

I am excited to go back and be involved in this project one last time, just as I am excited to go to Japan full time to reach these same people. Please be praying for the trip, and for God to provide the needed support to go. Also, the team is comprised of primarily men, and the team leader has expressed that he would like to get some more women to go, so if any of you lady's out there is up for a trip to Japan this December, check out the trip on the Jesus Film Mission Trips website!

If any of you would like to support me for just this one trip, you can do so through Paypal by clicking the button below! Thank you all so much!

Japan's National Chauvinistic Husband's Association

2008-09-15T22:47:00Z

This is sort of a follow up to my last post. I tracked down some more info on "The National Chauvinistic Husband's Association." Appearently "Chauvinistic" is a bad translation, because this is a group dedicated to saving their marriages by learning to love their wives. They have around a thousand members and the group was started by a guy back in 1999 who was on the brink of a divorce himself.

They have a 10 level program that husbands try to advance through. So far only one of them has made it to level 10, and that's the founder. But here's the 10 levels.

Level 1: Is still in love with his wife after three years of marriage.

Level 2: Does a good job helping with housework.

Level 3: Has never cheated on his wife--or his wife has never caught him cheating.

Level 4: Can practice a "ladies first" policy.

Level 5: Can take a walk with his wife while holding hands.

Level 6: Can listen to his wife seriously.

Level 7: Can solve problems between his wife and his mother in one night.

Level 8: Can say "thank you" without hesitation.

Level 9: Can say "sorry" without fear.

Level 10: Can say "I love you" without embarrassment.

"Japan is a peaceful country, but the household is at war"

2008-09-06T17:33:00Z

I just stumbled across an interesting article from the Washington Post:

Learn to be Nice to Your Wife or Pay the Price

For quite some time now divorce has been tragically high among retired people in Japan. The reason is largely due to corporate culture, in which men work long hours in the city, and then spend time drinking with collegues until late at night. This is the accepted norm for the "Salary men" in Japan, to leave work earlier or to skip out hanging out with ones collegues could jeopordize advancement opportunities. So often a man will leave for work early in the morning and not arrive home until after 10:00pm at night, every night.

The consequence is that after decades of marriage during which time husband and wife essentially never see each other, when it comes time to retire it is as if they are living with a complete stranger. Quite frequently such a marriage will end in divorce. A new law taking effect this year has for the moment worsened this situation. Wives are now entitled to half of their husbands pensions should they get divorced. Since the law took effect divroce has gone up 6%. A potential positive side effect of this is that husbands will now work harder to preserve their marriages as they also seek to preserve their cash flow.

However, the root cause of this, as I see it, is idolatry. These men are trapped by a culture that encourages them to dedicate their lives, heart and soul, to a company. The company becomes the central focus of life. Their social circle consists of co-workers and supervisors; they live to advance and be promoted and at the end they are left with nothing but shattered marriage and their pensions. The company tosses them aside, and recruits new, young lives to dominate, luring them with the empty promises of success and fullfillment. These men are worshipping the wrong thing. They need to hear about Christ.

Christ alone can heal their marriages, and restore a right balance to their living. Christ alone can give them peace and satisfaction; not in financial security or pride in their own accomplishments, but in knowing Him, and hoping in His promises and blessings, which are so much better than merely hoping that their wives won't divorce them and that they won't lose half or their pension.

Two things you could do to help me get to Japan

2008-08-28T00:58:00Z

Support has been coming in a little slow the last few months, so I’m looking for new people to contact and talk to, in order to see if they would interested in joining my team, partnering together to reach the Japanese. This is where you can be of help. If you could do one of these two things, that would help me immensely, and even more important, you'd be taking part in missions - God's plan to reach the world for Christ. So here's the two ways you can help:

1. Send me the name, address and phone number of who I should contact at your church to see if they would be willing to support me or allow me to come speak sometime.

2. If you are involved with a small group or Bible study, arrange to have me come talk for a little bit about Japan, and the needs over there, at one of your meetings.

#1 is easy. #2 is a little more difficult, especially for those of you who haven't met me in person. To that end I'd love to get the chance to meet with any of you in person prior to coming to talk at your Bible study, just drop me a line. And for those of you who are out of the area, and would still like to help in this regard, let me know, it may take some planning, but if I can line up a few other opportunities to meet people in your area I could make a special trip out of it.

This is something I can't do on my own. God will have to do it for me, and I fully believe that His favorite method of supplying is through His people. I see this as an exciting opportunity to partner with you and your church to impact people thousands of miles away with the Gospel of Christ, and that this is precisely what God wants to happen.

Also, please pray for me. Pray that God would give me the perseverance and diligence to keep pressing on, and pray that He would provide many more people willing to partner with me to spread the gospel throughout Japan. And that’s really what this is all about. Finally, please be praying for the churches I will be contacting in the near future, that God will both provide for them to the extent that they will be able to participate in sending missionaries to other countries, and that God will move in the hearts of their leadership and members to send me to Japan.

Summer festival

2008-08-25T12:52:00Z

Hi everyone, this is Tomo in Tokyo!

Here's some cultural stuff!

Last weekend, the Shinto shrine in my neighborhood had a summer festival or Omatsuri.

I woke up to the sound of Ohayashi (Omatsuri music with little drums, flutes, and some bells) on Friday and I could hear the Ohayashi all through the weekend.

This festival marks the end of summer, and people give thanks to the gods for safety over the summer and pray for a rich harvest in the fall to come, or they used to. Now people don't even think about harvest, maybe just a few hardcore people.

Every Shinto shrine has its own tradition of this end-of-summer festival and some get pretty spectacular. Like Gion-matsuri in Kyoto or Nebuta-matsuri in Aomori. You could check them out if you're interested.

The shrine in my town throws just an ordinary Omatsuri,

with carrying around of Omikoshi (shrine replica) (below),

(These men are not wearing short skirts, just in case you were wondering. These are jackets. Technically they're wearing a jacket and an underwear called fundoshi, and no pants. Fundoshi is similar to what Sumo wrestlers wear, with their butts showing and all. These guys are totally allowed to walk around with their butts exposed in public during the festival. It's ok, it's cultural.)

and many vendors that sell food and toys and stuff.

My Christian parents used to not let me go to these festivals when I was a child and I remember really wanting to go. So now that I'm allowed to, I love going to these festivals. It's like trying to catch up on all the fun I missed out on.

My parents had good reasons to do that though. It's not only a Shinto event, but it's also an important source of income for the yakuza's, the Japanese mafia or gangs. So whatever you buy at the festival, it basically helps the shrine and the mafia.

I guess it's one of the examples of Japanese Christians' cultural dilemma.

That's all for now.

Jaane :)

Prayer, Church, Missions and other spiritual things.

2008-08-15T04:03:00Z

One of the things God has been showing me lately is how necessary a strong spiritual foundation is to serving Him in any capacity. It's like I keep trying to isolate church, and prayer and Bible reading, and work, and support raising each into their own individual environments.I have a tendency to try to live as if one thing doesn't have an impact on another, as if I can skip prayer and devotion and still be able to raise support, or be useful in the church. But I'm begining to see is that if I sleep in and miss my devotions, or if I slack off at work, or if I tune out dad's message at church on Sunday, or ignore my responsibilities in support raising, or put together a half hearted message for youth group on Thursday nights, or skate by in any one area of my life, everything else suffers as well.

It's all or nothing. Either I am living for Christ, in the word, serving Him boldly, faithfully and diligently, or I'm just barely getting by. I'm either soaring or crashing. And though it's a struggle to get into the right mindset, and to get into actively striving to follow Christ, once I do, that's when I start to see God work, and that joy and excitement can keep me where God wants me to be. This sort of all came together for me the other day when I was reading through John, and came to the part where Christ said:

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

As I read this, I was considering the problem of raising support, as I have found myself doing more and more lately. I like to plan out strategies, make plans, and try to follow through. I like to work it out on my own, and pray, hoping that God will bless my efforts. The solution however wasn't in my plans. The solution was to abide in Chirst, and let His word abide in me, then He promised to do whatever I asked. And I have been, and still am asking that He bring in the support I need to serve Him in Japan. I alwas figured it wasn't an unreasonable request, I want to go serve God overseas, but I can't till I raise the support. But that's a secondary issue. The real issue is that I can' t be a missionary and serve God if I'm not abiding in Christ. I could win the lottery and move to Japan, but I wouldn't be any sort of a missionary if I wasn't abiding in Christ. If I wasn't trusting Him, and striving to follow His example, and studying His words, and living them out, I wouldn't be of any use on the mission field.

So maybe, just maybe, the reason I'm still here, and not there, is so that I can learn to abide in Christ. So that I can learn to abide in Christ by doing my devotions every single morning of every single day. So that I can learn to abide in Christ as I strive to work hard and diligently at the Jesus Film Project, 8:30AM to 5:00PM Monday through Friday. So that I can learn to abide in Christ in while preparing and teaching lessons, and disciping high school students on Thursday nights, and abide in Christ by fellowshipping with people at Church on Sundays, so that I can learn to abide in Christ every second of every day in every activity, so that when I get to Japan, and face the toughest challenges and most demanding hardships I have ever faced, I will do so not trusting in myself, or relying on my own skills or abilities, but that I will do so abiding in my Savior, who has already conquered the world, and has made me more than a conqueror with Him. Praise God that He doesn't send me off to Japan without preparing me.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
Psalms 84:11

English camp

2008-08-13T08:40:00Z

This is Tomo and I have some missions updates from Tokyo!

Last weekend, I worked at a Jr. & Sr. High English camp at a Christian retreat center in West Tokyo called Okutama Bible Chalet (OBC). OBC was built in 1960 by SEND International and has been used as a Christian retreat center ever since. Every summer, OBC hosts many camp programs. This year, there were some 13 camps, most of which were for children. I’ve been going to OBC every summer to work as a counselor and this was my fourth year. There were 27 kids, most of them Jr. High kids (13 to 15 years old) and a couple Sr. High kids (16 to 18). There were 8 boys and 19 girls.

We had many fun programs such as English classes,

chapel time,

skit night,

and games.

We also had rafting, one of OBC’s most popular activities,

cooking class,

campfire,

smores,

pool, craft, and so on. This year's Jr. & Sr. High English Camp was a rather challenging one, because we had one girl on a wheelchair, and her twin sister who also had some kind of disability. Then on the day before the camp started, the camp staff were told that one boy from Taiwan was coming. When all the campers arrived at OBC, we learned that the boy only understood Mandarin Chinese. However, as it turned out, God sent as counselors a pastor’s wife who used to be a nurse who was able to help the girl on the wheelchair, and a girl from Hong Kong who spoke both English and Mandarin, who was able to help the boy from Taiwan. It was pretty amazing to see how God provided for the needs of the campers, even ones that us staff didn’t really expected.

What was really exciting was that there were many non-Christian kids as well as some Christian kids. On the questionnaire that the campers filled out on the last day, 8 kids checked on “I want to accept Jesus as my savior”. One boy was very open about it and said so during cabin time, and one of the counselors was able to pray with him and tell him a little bit about what it meant to be a Christian. Non-Christian kids in Japan know very little about Christianity or Christians, and a lot of follow-up is needed for them to know more about it and gradually find a church they can regularly attend.

Please pray that those kids who came to OBC this summer will continue to be interested in the Gospel, and will be able to come back next summer.

Jaane :)

VBS

2008-08-04T10:54:00Z

Hey, this is Tomo again.

My church had VBS last week.

It was a five-day program and it was a pretty good turn-out.

We had many kids from the neighborhood. Most of them were not church kids. Some of them were first-comers and there were some familiar faces too. We had English songs, games, Bible stories, English lessons, snack, and craft time. And we had hot dogs for lunch on the last day after the program was over.

Here's a group picture! This was the picture with most kids. I like how half the kids are not really looking at the camera.

And here is a picture of one church kid (on the right) and his little friends at preschool showing their Daniel in a Lion's Den craft.

I helped 4 days and I had a great time working with kids because kids are so much fun!! :)

We've been having for the past about 10 years what we call "summer workers", which was originally students on a missions trip from the Master's college in southern California. David was one of them. A couple years ago the college stopped sending a team to work with my church, but some graduates are enthusiastic enough about the ministry to come back at their own expenses to help out. This year we had four guys who had come before as "summer workers" helping out with VBS. It has been extremely helpful since the VBS has been focusing on English lessons, which attract young mothers who want their kids to learn English. There are in fact many people in Japan who are very eager to learn English.

Here's a picture of Tony and Frank doing English lessons for 2-year-olds. Outreach programs for kids like VBS is very good because we can also reach out for mothers.

It was a busy week for me with VBS in the morning and work in the afternoon (I work part-time at a preschool.) but I had lots of fun and most importantly, more kids and moms in the neighborhood were able to come to church and hear about God. A lot of Japanese non-Christians that I've talked to said that they don't want to go to church because they feel intimidated. Many people seem to think they need to be really good people to be able to go to church. There's a Japanese expression that literally translates into English as "threshold is high", which is an expression to describe a place that is intimidating for certain reasons. For many Japanese people, church's threshold is high. Programs like this might help to lower the threshold.

So it was a really great week! Oh and I put up some more pictures from VBS so I hope you can check them out!

And I hope you'll have a great week too!

Jaane :)

Hi from Tokyo!!!

2008-07-31T08:04:00Z

Hi everyone!!

My name is Tomo. I’m David’s fiancee.

So this is David’s missionary blog, and right now I’m not raising support yet because I’m not a SEND member yet, but since I will be soon, I’m going to be writing on this blog as well. My posts will basically be about what I’m up to, and also what my church is up to. I’ll try to post as often as possible so please come visit and check what’s up in Tokyo!

I live in Tokyo and I attend a church of about 100 people, which is a huge church in Japan! This past Sunday was a clean-up day. So we cleaned the whole church building. (We have a four-story building) Cleaning is always fun J especially when you do it with the whole church.

And then the most exciting part was, we installed a new rice cooker, stove, and a microwave/oven!!! We had had the old ones for years and the oven didn’t even work and was just taking up space, so it’s really exciting that we got new ones!

After that, a church elder took some of us out for dinner.We have four American guys helping out with VBS this year so they all went too.And David’s brother Jon, who is in Japan as a SEND missionary, was there too.We ate a lot and had a good time JWe had Okonomi-yaki, which is kind of like pancakes with vegetables and meat and sometimes seafood, and Monja-yaki, which is… hmm I don’t know how to explain, it looks kind of gross but it’s soooo good!! There’s a lot of food like that in Japan, looks gross but really good! So if you ever come to Japan, don’t be intimidated by looks and just try them.

You’ll be surprised how good it is in spite of how gross it looks. I think.

And we've been having VBS this week.

More about that next time.

Thanks for reading!

Jaane! (‘See ya’ in Japanese)

Tomo =)

Video Update: Support and Prayer requests

2008-07-25T18:45:00Z

This was originally made for my group over on Facebook, but it works here too.

July Prayer Requests

2008-07-24T23:59:00Z

Pray that I will be faithful and diligent to spend time in the word and make God's glory my top priority.

Pray that I will be faithful and diligent to do my part in support raising.

Pray that I'll have the courage to ask people to support me financially.

Pray that God will move the people that I talk to to partner with me, and provide financial support so that I can go to Japan as a missionary in Summer 2010.

Pray that God will bring some churches on board to provide larger financial support.

Pray for Tomo and I as we're apart for the next 5 months (I'll be going to Japan for a few weeks in December). Pray that we'll be able to get her a Visa so she can get back into the states when we get married.

Apologies for being MIA

2008-07-22T00:49:00Z

The last two months have been extrodinarily busy, but that's no excuse. I should have been posting here more often, and I intend to be back posting regularly from here on out. For now though, I figured I'd best give you all a recap on what's been happening the last two months.

A few weeks after getting engaged in May, Tomo finished her last quarter at UCI, and went to stay at my parents house for a month before returning to Japan. This was pretty nice, as I got to see her almost everyday before we'd be apart for 5 months after she went back to Japan. I also kept busy leading a high school Bible study on Thursday nights and a college Bible study on Tuesday nights.

June started getting a little hectic as my brother's wedding approached. Jon was in Japan until a week before the big day, leaving most of the preperation to us, so I had a good time making phone calls, organizing tuxedo rentals, and doing whatever else was needed. Also, as some of you may know, Tomo is the little sister of Jon's wife. We both became good friends with Tomo, Maki (Jon's wife) and their parents over the years, so it was exciting that they were all going to be staying here for a week or so.

The wedding turned out beautifully, surpisingly so, thanks to much help from friends and family. With all the last minute preperations I sort of figured more would have gone wrong, this being a Robison wedding and all, but it all came together. The only thing that was noticably flawed was our lack of exit strategy for the bride and groom, who got stuck being the last ones at their own reception.

The next week was spent haning out with Tomo and her family, who decided to take advantage of being in California by taking a week of vacation after the wedding. And I started packing up all my things, getting ready to move back into my parents house once Tomo went back to Japan. First Tomo's family flew home, then Jon and Maki returned from their honeymoon, and after spending one last day with us, they flew back to Japan, and a few days later, Tomo left as well.

It was pretty rough saying good bye to her, knowing that I wasn't going to see her again till December, when I'm planning on participating in the same Jesus Film trip I've been a part of for the last four years. However this couldn't really be avoided. We both had things we needed to do before we could get married; she had to finish her last year of school in Japan, and I had to raise a lot of support here in America.

So that brings us roughly up to date. I'm here, and she's over there, and we've both got a lot to do. For me I've got to get back to support raising. The last two months I've only done a minimal ammount of that, and now it's time to start a concentrated effort. I'll keep you posted on my plans for doing that as I go along, but this post is getting a bit longwinded. So I'll just give you step 1: Prayer. I'm going to spend more time in prayer myself, and I'm going to try to get as many people praying as possible.

I'm Engaged!

2008-05-21T19:45:00Z

Last June, when I was accepted as a missionary with SEND international, it was one of the most exciting events in my life. I suppose it was what graduating from college should have felt like; I could see exactly where God was calling me, and what He wanted me to do with my life. He was sending me to Japan to be in full time ministry as a missionary. That calling rang true with all the desires God had been cultivating in my life up till that point. My anticipation and excitement at the thought of going to Japan as a missionary could not have been any higher.

At least that's what I thought until about a week ago, when I proposed to my girlfriend, Tomo, and she said she'd marry me. Now I'll be going to Japan, married to a godly young woman who shares my desire to serve God and reach out to the Japanese, a young woman I love, respect, and enjoy every second of time that I spend I'm around her. I mean, come on, how could things possibly get any better than that? I guess I'll have to wait and see; God's proven to be infinitely more creative than I am.

I met Tomo almost five years ago, on my very first trip to Japan. If you haven't already figured it out, she is Japanese, and normally lives in Tokyo with her family. Her father is the pastor of the church that we went to work with, and my brother Jon and I stayed with their family for six weeks. Oddly enough Tomo's older sister Maki was also living there, and my brother is marrying her next month. So, in the summer of 2003 Jon and I both met our fiances at pretty much exactly the same time. I swear, neither of us had any idea at the time. Especially not me. I didn't even think that was an option. Tomo was a senior in Highschool, and I had just graduated college. I wasn't planning on going back to Japan, and as far as I knew, I would never see her again. Still we became very good friends over the course of our stay there, Tomo has a real gift when it comes to languages, and speaks amazingly good english, which meant that we dragged her along everywhere we went and she spent a lot of time with our team.

That trip was a real turning point in my life, and God used many aspects of it to instill in me a desire to serve Him in ways I hadn't previously considered possible. I went home no longer trying to see what I could do for God, but rather what God wanted to do through me. He began to show me. One thing He did was bring me back to Japan. A lot. In fact I've been to Japan once a year ever since that first trip. Which meant I got to see Tomo at least once a year. Not only that, she came and visited here a couple of times as well. And I really started to like her. Still, it didn't seem like anything could come of it. She wasn't going to be moving to the US, and I didn't know what I was going to do. So I just set it aside to wait and see what God would do. And then I got accepted with SEND.

Once that happened, and I knew I was going to wind up in Japan, I started to think about Tomo a lot more. Two months after that, she came to the US to spend ten months attending UCI as a foreign exchange student, living a half hour away from me. I would classify that as "God doing something." Tomo was pretty helpless over here, since she didn't have a drivers license, which meant that I got to spend a lot of time with her. And I couldn't have been happier. We started dating after she'd been here about two months, and things have been awesome ever since.

We've still got a bit of a journey ahead of us. Tomo has to go back to Japan to finish her last year of college. She graduates in March of 2009, so we hope to get married shortly after that. Also she will be joining SEND, and so we'll have to raise significantly more support, which will mean that Tomo will probably have to move to the US for a short time while we raise the rest of it. Getting a Visa is not an easy process. Still, God has made it so evident that He is the One who has brought things this far, and I can't wait to see what He does in the coming year.

Support Update

2008-04-23T20:29:00Z

It's always interesting to watch God work. I mean, we "know" he does amazing things, at least we always say we know it, but it seems far less often that we actually step out in faith enough to witness it. Last week was a small reminder of that for me.

Human nature seems to drive people to chose the path that is easiest and most comfortable, and to leave those which are difficult and seemingly unpleasant until there are no other options. For me it appears that one of the most reliable ways of determining what God wants me to do is simply to look at the things I've been avoiding -- usually those are exactly the things He wants me to do. Call it the Jonah syndrome if you like. In this case the thing that I was avoiding was asking people, one on one, face to face, to support me financially. I hate asking people for money; and even though I know that I'm not asking them to give me money, but to give money to God, and His work, part of me still feels like I'm asking for myself.

So, naturally, I did what most any human would do to try to raise support: whatever seemed to be the most comfortable. I wrote letters, sent out little cards, set up a website, created a Facebook group, spoke in front of church and wrote Newsletters. All stuff that is necessary, beneficial, and helpful; all things I will continue to do. In fact God has been bringing in a steady, though small, stream of supporters through these methods. But the one thing I didn't want to do was call someone up, ask them if I could meet with them and invite them to support me. And since I didn't want to do that, I didn't... until last week.

Last week I met with five of my closest friends that had not yet started to support me. I talked to them on the phone, or sent them an email, made an appointment, shared about what I was going to do, and asked them to support me financially. All five of them said yes. To put that in perspective, I previously had seven financial supporters, after roughly six months of support raising. In addition to those five, God brought two additional supporters that I didn't talk with. That means that this month God doubled the number of supporters I have, and it looks likely that my percentage of support will also have doubled by the end of the month. And to make things even better, I actually enjoyed getting the chance to share one on one with my friends where God was leading me, and was incredibly encouraged to see their enthusiastic responses.

God is good; He is faithful to reward us when we place Him first and humbly obey Him, He encourages us when we are discouraged, He causes us to rejoice at the most unexpected times. I have over 10% of my needed support! Look what God has done!