EAST ASIA UPDATE

News

Hope for Japan
One of the most densely populated countries, Japan has adopted a Western lifestyle and accumulated wealth and technology. Yet Japanese are a traditional people who have everything they need, except the one thing they fear or resist accepting: a relationship with Jesus Christ. Japanese are driven by cultural rules handed down through the generations. “The nail that sticks its head up is the one that gets hit” goes a Japanese proverb. Another barrier to the Gospel is adherence to traditional animistic religions, although many Japanese have apathy rather than adherence to faith. Missionary Buddy Brents adds that the Japanese are “locked up in fear of what other people will think about them if they become a Christian.” Missionaries seek lost people through relational evangelism, joining sports, social and business groups.

The going is tough, but God is producing a harvest of Japanese souls

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‘Yet-to-be believers’
He is truly a carpenter following a carpenter. Ima Oka has fashioned tables, cabinets and clocks for 33 years. Ten years ago he heard the Gospel, but only recently was his heart ready for treatment, in the same way Oka treats and matures his wooden creations. After prayerwalking the streets of Osaka, Japan, missionaries Bob and Gloria Gellerstedt encountered Oka in his woodshop and began weekly Bible study in his showroom. In just months, Oka accepted Jesus and was baptized on the shop’s second floor. Oka’s response to the Gospel was unusually quick for Japanese, who may take 40 or more years to come to faith after contact with the Gospel. “You just encourage people, and be patient with people,” says Carlton Walker, a veteran 25-year missionary in Japan. “We call them ‘yet-to-be believers.

CHINA UPDATE

CHINA. Three U.S. college students had experienced discouraging days of futile searching for an ethnic minority group. When they stopped at a noodle shop for lunch, they were encouraged to see a scripture calendar hanging on the wall. After they prayed over their meal, the owner quickly approached them to share that he too was a Christian. They asked about the minority group and found out that the man's house church had already led five members of the group to Christ. He made it clear that they didn't want training from the outside, but said that they did want Bibles in the heart language of the people. The need was conveyed to a Christian worker living in China. It took him a year and a half to secure the books and a 12-hour bus ride to deliver them. In the meantime, the group of five believers had grown to 40 and not only did they want Bibles, but training in how to grow. "That's what we're here for," said the worker. "That's what God has called us to do."

CHINA. Probably because of their advanced years, and most certainly because of their persistence, they were given an incredible opportunity by local authorities to share Christ in specific ethnic minority areas. The older couple had asked several times for permission to tell the local people about Jesus, and been denied. But on their final try, the doors were miraculously and mysteriously thrown open. It became apparent that God's spirit was at work when, in several villages, they shared the gospel with entire village populations assembled by village heads, and in one village, more than 50 persons accepted Christ over a period of several months.

CHINA. It took a long time for their neighbors to warm up to the American family. But after six years and a handful of new Christians, the family was finally able to establish the first church in the community where they lived. They had tried befriending the villagers, had prayed over the sick people in the villages, and had even hired some of them for a construction project. But nothing really impacted the people until, in the cold of winter, they distributed some quilts handmade by Christians in Minnesota. As best they can tell, that was the turning point for the ethnic minority group. Barriers were broken down and hearts began to open.