Dear Praying Friends,
Warm greetings from a crisp Sendai eve with temps to drop to about minus 2 degrees C. only. Today was a beautiful day with snow melting on roads and hillsides.
Yesterday a smiling young Jehovah’s Witness maybe in her 20’s came to the door. Two days ago a frail elderly woman trying to show me a JW page on her tablet and another smiling gal maybe around 20 dropped by. I complimented them as I was impressed these lost souls working so hard to be one of the elect would knock on doors in the snow. I wondered where are the Christians? Sad to say, we see eager beaver pairs of Mormons on bicycles with helmets; gals, too. There are at least 4, 5 Mormon churches in Sendai. There are 100,000 JW’s knocking on doors all over Japan. I must say the JW’s are trying to keep up with the times. The grandma-type wanted badly to show me stuff on her tablet and have me take their magazine. But I kidded them that it’s unfair—they don’t take our tracts. This time though the young gal all smiles still seemed genuinely interested if we met every week and who were the speakers. Pray she and the older woman will someday be saved from their clutches. I told them, “You have to believe in Jesus,” to which surprisingly for a JW, the young gal smiled and said she did. I wanted to let slip the next piece of logic--that you aren’t supposed to believe in a creature, you know, even an arch angel. But I decided to take it slower. But overall, this was about the best conversation I have had so far with JW’s. I purposely stayed clear of mentioning red flag words like the Trinity, etc.—cuz that just seems to close their minds and label us as those who believe such errors (to their way of thinking). Moons ago, JW moms used to haul along kids and go door to door. But societal opinion seems to have made them spruce up their image. The older woman said 1 out of 200 in Izumi Ward are JW’s. That would make their numbers better than for the general Evangelical ratio in Japan which is 3 out of 1000. So sad.
Beloved brother and sisters in Christ, thank you for your prayers and support that have kept us plugging along these 33 years back on the field. Please continue to remember our and the mission’s needs at this crucial time. The Lord has provided our OPC mission work a wonderful used office building for our chapel. Last April we signed the contract. We still have $90,000 in loans to friends and family to return before we all end up in the nursing home.
Nov. 18, 9 volunteers and staff from Trans World Radio from places like Arizona, Philadelphia, Kansas, Singapore and Japan—plus WEC missionary Matt Cummings--helped what they called “donkey-tracting” posting 1500 packs of tracts in 2 neighborhoods nearby. After lunch fellowship, having finished earlier than expected, the men helped cut and stuff blue Styrofoam insulation between rafters in the warehouse side of the 2nd story. Since last May, I have had the privilege monthly of having messages recorded downtown at Radio3 (FM 76.2) for TWR to be broadcast on 14 radio stations from Okinawa in the south to Akita Prefecture, north of Sendai. Pastors from different denominations have about 12 minutes to speak with about 16 minutes of “filler” gospel music in Japanese and English. There are no religious broadcasting stations per se in Japan. But unbelievers don’t mind listening to music in even an unknown language—as long as it is soothing. This is basically a voluntary ministry and listeners may be far away, but we do pray for fruit.
Dec. 14 we had our first evangelistic concert in our new facility with about 38 present, though 17 were from the orchestra and music team from Lee University in Tennessee led by Prof. Arden Jensen who was the missionary associate I replaced in 1984. They have been coming now for about 6 years every other year to serve from up north in the tsunami hit coast of Iwate Prefecture to Tokyo Christian College and Yokohama area down south. They want to help the churches, many tiny, in Japan with students raising support to come, it sounds like. They had drivers for their vanload of instruments and stayed at Nozomi Center 2 hours south by subway and train. For at least 6 of the concert guests, it may have been the first time they had ever been inside a church building.
We are excited about the first ever, as far as we know, Evangelism Explosion course offered in the Tohoku (NE Japan) being offered 13 weeks straight, 1/7 to 4/1, at our chapel with 4 students including Tsuruko and myself and 2 auditors, with WEC missionary Matt Cummings leading. Tomorrow at 10 a.m. will be the very first OJT (on the job training) with former English student Mrs. Kida, maybe in her early 50’s willing to come to our chapel to listen to a short presentation of the gospel. Pray the Holy Spirit enable her to understand and desire and to believe the gospel. I try to bicycle or drive up to church up to 2 hours early to turn on kerosene heaters. We know no system is perfect and few are in Japanese. But I wish we had begun this 33 years ago when I first returned to Japan. For newcomers, EE was begun by Dr. James Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is now in every country in the world with over a million trained. It was tried in Japan in the ‘70’s apparently but seems to have fizzled. Matt says he did not think EE would work in Japan until he met the present on-fire director Pastor Yamanaka down in Kyoto who has greatly revamped the program.
Please be praying as we look forward to the very first creation seminar, 2/19, with Kyodan (United Church) nearby Pastor Toita showing video of his visit to the Grand Canyon. I know this may not be your bag but I do plead with you to place yourselves in the shoes of the 95% of Japanese people who have never ever maybe heard there is an alternative to the reigning paradigm. I do not want to have that on my conscience, myself. Especially when the leading Evolutionists in the world themselves declare that the present new-Darwinian paradigm ought not be taught in schools. How about that! If evolutionists leaders themselves are saying such—why—I want the whole world to hear.
The significance of Pastor Toita is…that he is a United Church pastor which we have all along thought to be more on the liberal side of things. But that he was able, 11/18, to make the same presentation at the United Church headquarters downtown, called Emao (Emmaus) indicates times have truly changed and PTL! the little creation movement we missionaries have tried to encourage seems to be having an influence wider than their numbers.
March 20, we are looking forward to our first evangelistic country-Western gospel concert featuring award winning artist and genuine cowboy Greg Hager and wife from North Dakota on their first visit to Japan. Please be praying the Lord will use the events to bring lost sheep home. For now.
His peace,
Murray