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Tomo and I are in Michigan right now at SEND’s headquarters for candidate orientation program (COP). This is the same program I went through back in 2007 when I was accepted as a missionary appointee with SEND. However, SEND’s policy is not to send a couple out on the field unless both spouses are appointed as missionaries, which means that Tomo also needs to go through the process.

I’m also sitting in on most of the sessions, getting a little refresher course on support raising, and getting to see and talk to a lot of the SEND staff that I’ve gotten to know over the years. It’s been very encouraging, because much of the staff is comprised of missionaries who worked in Japan for many years, a number of them even know and have worked with Tomo’s parents, and some even knew then before they were married.

The next two weeks will be pretty busy. Tomo will have to endure a number of evaluations (although this morning I learned that she scored the highest out of all the appointees on a language acquisition test, despite the fact that the test was written with English speakers in mind). We’ll be getting pictures taken so we’ll finally have prayer cards with both of us on them. On Saturday we’ll be interviewed as a couple by the SEND board, and a week from Friday, at the conclusion of the program, Lord willing, Tomo will officially be appointed as a SEND missionary. We’ll also get a new list of financial requirements, which dictates the amount of support we’ll need to raise before SEND will allow us to go out on the field.

Support has been a little slow since I last went through COP two and a half years ago, but things are also a lot different. I believe God has had a plan along, and I’m excited to jump into support raising officially as a couple.

When I finished COP in 2007, I was single, I went from Michigan almost directly to Romania leading a short term team from our church, I came back from that to continue leading the high school and college groups at church, and soon started dating Tomo, and subsequently got engaged and married. God had me involved in a lot of different ministries and was introducing a lot of changes, I could barely keep up. Now however, God’s cleared a lot of things off of my plate, and I feel like this is the time to finish raising support, and get over to Japan.

Please be praying for this week. Pray for Tomo that she does well on all the tests and doesn’t get too stressed out. Pray that the interview goes well, and that she will be appointed. Also please pray for wisdom as we try to set a departure date that is both realistic and rooted in complete faith in God’s ability to provide.

Happy New Year!!

I (Tomo) hope everyone’s having a nice week. What’s your new year’s resolution? Mine is to be more self-disciplined! Like getting up in the morning and spending more time in the Word and prayer. I was challenged by David to read through the whole Bible this year and I made my own Bible reading calendar. I read three chapters from the Old Testament and one chapter from the New Testament everyday and I’ll have read the whole Bible by Dec. 20th! I made every Sunday “catch up” day… My home church in Japan handed out a similar plan a couple years ago and I read through the Bible in about 2 years using that plan. This year my goal is to stick to the plan and finish in a year. It’s gonna be good!

Well, today I want to write about Japanese New Year. On the 1st of January, many people get up early and go to a shrine to pray for a good year. Here’s how you do it: you go up, ring the gigantic bell to wake the gods, throw some pennies in, clap twice, and pray for whatever you want. This year I was looking at the news and it said one of the shrine bells fell on a high school boy and he broke his nose! How ironical.. Also, New Year is the biggest family holiday, kinda like Christmas or Thanksgiving in America. My parents go visit all the relatives usually on the 2nd or 3rd every year. And we eat lots of New Year’s food! The New Year festivity (visiting family and eating New Year’s food) usually goes on for the first week of January. This year I’m over in America, and there’s nothing going on for the New Year so it feels a little weird…

Let me introduce some of the New Year’s food we eat in Japan!

My favorite is Omochi!! Omochi (or just Mochi) is made from rice and you cook it on a grill and eat it with soy sauce & nori sea-weed or soy bean flour, or put it in hot soup called Ozoni.. mmm yuummm.. I haven’t had omochi this year. David and I are going to go to a Japanese market later today to get some! Cooked omochi is very sticky and stretchy. Every year people choke on omochi and die… so I have to be careful!

Another typical New Year’s food is Osechi, which is like an assorted food in a tiered food boxes. They are all cooked in a way that makes them last long. You’re supposed to prepare them by New Year’s Eve so you won’t make the god of fire angry by using fire on New Year (its practical meaning is so that the women can take a break from cooking). And there’s superstitious meaning to each food item. For example, herring roe (my favorite!) symbolizes a wish for family prosperity (many little fish eggs àmany children à family tree prosper!), and so on.

mmm I miss Japan…

I just finished reading “Revolution in World Missions” by Gospel for Asia (GFA) founder K.P. Yohannan. The “Revolution” referred to in the title is Yohannan’s belief that Western nations should shift from primarily sending western missionaries overseas to primarily supporting indigenous native missionaries that are already in the country to be evangelized, or near it.

After reading the book, I feel that GFA is doing some monumentally important work in Asia. Their strategies and methods of training native believers and sending them to plant churches among their own people or people who are culturally similar appear to be effective and efficient, and these missionaries ought to be held in high esteem for the sacrifices they make to help fulfill the great commission. Part of the book is meant to convict a western audience of selfishness and materialism, in order to free them to be able to give to overseas missions, and even as I myself felt convicted reading it, I believe his point is well made, and that we Christians here should be making sacrifices and cuts in our standard of living in order to support the work of missions overseas. All that said I have a number of disagreements with it, one in particular I’d like to address.

“Revolution in World Missions,” is essentially an extended support letter. Its purpose is to entreat western believers to financially and prayerfully support Asian missionaries in the third world so that they can spread the gospel. I have no problem with this. Yohannan seeks to gain financial support from three sources.

1. Individuals making changes in their own lifestyles in order to support more missions.
2. Churches shifting their spending from local ministries and buildings to world missions.
3. Churches shifting their support from western missionaries to indigenous missionaries.

Again, I find myself agreeing with him on the first two cases. However in the third case, I have to disagree. Yohannan, through many personal accounts of interactions with western missionaries, missions organizations and denominations, concludes that in nearly all cases Western missionaries are a tremendous waste of money, ineffective, motivated by pride, and full of subtle but deep seated prejudice and racism. In many instances this may indeed be the case, however the solution is not to pull the plug on the West sending missionaries, but for western “senders” to be better stewards in choosing whom they send, and for western missionaries to become better ministers in foreign countries. As a missionary appointee planning to go to Japan myself, I found many of his critiques helpful, as they give me things to watch out for.  I believe any missionary that is humble, willing to live among the people he’s trying to serve and adopt their culture and strong in his faith can avoid most of the problems Yohannan has with Westerners.

I also have an issue with Yohannan’s strategy of “don’t send people, just send money.” Perhaps in many instances we should send more money than people but I think it’s very difficult to find Biblical justification for exclusively sending funds. The great commission to the disciples was not that they start saving up their money to hire people to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, but to start taking it there themselves. In the early church there were frequently missionaries being sent from one church and culture to another, and in this way all churches were encouraged. The function of a missionary is primarily to spread the gospel, but it in addition they serve as representatives, sharing news, resources and encouragement from one church to another. Yohannan himself claims that he believes that God has called him to open the eyes of Western Christians to see how deeply materialism has penetrated our hearts, and I have no doubt that this is the case. However that only goes to show that God uses people from other cultures to teach his children. Just as his Indian perspective allows him to see dangers in our culture, I think that a Western perspective could also perceive dangers in Indian culture.

Yohannan seems horrified at the thought of all the money that is being “wasted” on Western missionaries. However I think that this attitude does not take into consideration the sovereign provision of God. His fear is that if western churches send western missionaries then fewer native missionaries will be funded. This is odd given the many stories he relates of God’s miraculous provision of his ministry. Yohannan often comes across as though he believes that his ministry is the only one being led by the Holy Spirit, and that all missions organizations that are sending Western missionaries are doing it for some other reason.
To be fair, Yohannan does concede that there are occasions when western missionaries are useful, however he does so only in a few short sentences after spending chapters arguing that they are a waste.

In conclusion, I think we all need to be on the same team here, not competing for funds as though it were some sort of scarce natural resource. I believe that God is leading the ministry of Gospel for Asia, just as I believe that He is directing SEND, OMF, YWAM and countless other missions organizations. I believe that He will fund all the ones that He wants to succeed, and that if He wants to phase others out then He will. I think that American Christians need to give both generously and wisely in to support overseas missions work.

(SIDE NOTE: GFA doesn’t work in Japan, and it’s my opinion that, given the small number of Christians, Japan isn’t yet at a level where they have enough of their own that can reach the rest of the country, so it’s my opinion that Japan still very much needs missionaries from other countries to help take the gospel to its unreached areas.)

(NOTE 2: One thing I forgot to mention, that I think is important; in the interaction that I have had with Western missionaries, I have not noticed the negative qualities that Yohannan has described to be typical. In nearly all casses the impression I get from national believers is that the help of Western missionaries greatly appreciated and welcomed.)

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone’s having a nice Christmas week.

Well, it’s my (Tomo’s) turn to write the blog post. And since it’s only a couple days before Christmas, I’m going to write about Christmas in Japan.

Christmas is a big event in Japan, which is kind of interesting because most Japanese are not Christian. I don’t know how or since when it got so big over there. Most people know it’s a Christian holiday and I think a lot of people know that it’s a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Probably most people, if they ever stop and think about it, don’t know why they have to make such a big deal about Christmas when they’re not even Christians.

Anyway, Christmas in Japan is pretty similar to how it is in America. Malls and shops all put up Christmas decorations and sell Christmas stuff, parents buy Christmas presents to children, and everywhere you go, you see Santa Claus, reindeer, wreaths, candles, etc. But a lot of things are different too. The biggest difference, though, is I think that it’s regarded as more of a romantic holiday in Japan rather than a family holiday. There’s a lot of pressure on single people to find a date on Christmas Eve, and also on dating guys to plan a romantic date and prepare romantic presents. I hung out with two of my girlfriends from high school a little before Christmas last year when I was in a long-distance relationship with David, because none of us had a date. They both complained about the pressure and said Christmas was the most depressing time of the year and that they feel angry at all the couples walking around. They also said that I was better off even without a boyfriend because I was a Christian and it was more about celebrating Jesus for me. “But for us, it’s all about having a date on Christmas Eve, and we don’t!” they said. So I jokingly asked them why not become a Christian so they won’t have to feel so miserable on Christmas. And they said they wouldn’t dare become Christians just for that purpose because if God finds out, He’d send them to hell. I thought that was pretty funny. They don’t really believe in God but they know they better not mess with God.

So that’s one illustration of how people view Christmas in Japan. Obviously, there’s a lot of work to be done to spread the joy of Christmas there. Pray for Japanese Christians and churches!

I finally finished John Piper’s “Let the Nations Be Glad.” It is an excellent look into the theology of missions, examining why it is important for Christians to be involved in missions, and what precisely the goal of missions is. Rather than give you a book review I’d like to talk a little bit about one chapter which deals with some issues that I think relate particularly to doing missions in Japan. In a chapter titled: “The Supremacy of God Among ‘All Nations,'” Piper argues that God’s command for missions is not that the Church try to save as many people as possible, but to save people from every people group on the earth. This sounds simple, but the strategic ramifications of how the church should prioritize missions is immense.

Take Japan for example. If God’s instruction were simply to save as many people as possible, we might easily be tempted to give up on Japan and stop sending missionaries there for two reasons. First Japan has proven to be very resistant to the message of the Gospel. Christian missionaries have been freely working in Japan for 60 years, and still less than a percent of the population is saved. Second, Japan is one of the most expensive countries to minister in. For every missionary sent to Japan you might be able to send two or three to a country with a lower cost of living, or perhaps support a dozen local ministers in third world countries. From our perspective we may be tempted to think that Japan has not proven to show enough return to warrant the investment the Church has been putting into it. However I strongly believe that this is not the way God sees things.

Piper argues that the great commission (“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…“) and many other scriptures in the New Testament (Rev. 5:9 to name one) make it clear that God’s intent is not that the Church try to reach as many non-believers as possible, but that it strive to recruit worshipers from every people group, that is every tribe, language, people and nation. This means that even though God is may be doing great works in one nation, and saving many people that doesn’t mean that the church should neglect other nations and peoples who may be more difficult or expensive to reach. God is not concerned merely with the quantity of worshipers, but also with the variety. He is most glorified when people from every culture come to recognize Him as being supremely worthy of praise and worship, and forsake their own religions and gods to worship Him alone. Furthermore His resources are unlimited, if we give financially to support a missionary going to one country, we trust that God will provide where we cannot for a different missionary going to another country.

The aim of missions then is to start an indigineous church among every people group in the world, which is large enough in number, and mature enough spiritually to evangelize the rest of their people without outside help. This seems to have been what Paul had in mind when he said ” from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named,” Paul fullifilled the ministry of the gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum. This was a rather large geographic area, and certainly Paul did not mean that he had preached to every single person or even in every city in that area. Rather he had started churches in strategic cities throughout the area so that the gospel was now going out without him. He felt his calling then was to go to more unreached peoples who had yet to have a chance to hear the gospel. Everyone from Jerusalem to Illyricum would soon have a chance to hear the gospel, but there were places that would not until someone went to take the gospel there. Japan is certainly such a place. There are over 1,700 cities towns and villages in Japan that do not yet have a single Christian church. There is still much work to be done before the ministry of the gospel is fulfilled in Japan, though Lord willing God will use Tomo and I, and many of you to be a part of fulfilling it by planting new churches in Japan and calling more Japanese to praise and worship God.

It is with great anticipation that Tomo and I continue to raise support to go to Japan, we pray that the Lord will lead you to join us in our ministry in sending us with prayers and financial gifts, in this way you are counted as fellow workers in this ministry.

3 John 8
Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

First off, our new newsletter is out, (link is at the bottom of this post to encourage you not to leave just yet) so make sure you check that out. The paper copy will hopefully be in the mail next week for those of you lucky enough to be on our mailing list (if you’re not that lucky, all you have to do is ask, and we’ll put you on!). But before you go download that, let me give you a big picture update.

Tomo and I are currently in Aliso Viejo, California. We’re living here till we get our support raised, after which time we’ll be heading to Japan. We are currently about 15% supported. Right now our primary focus is on finding people who can commit to giving on a monthly basis. For many people this is a large commitment, especially in this economic climate. But there are people who care enough about spreading the gospel that they are willing to make sacrifices to joyfully and obediently heed God’s call to take the message of salvation to the ends of the earth. It has been a great joy and privilidge to see how generous the poeple of God can be, as we’ve seen many join our support team, and we’re very thankful to them and to God that they have joined our ministry. On average people give about $50 a month, some less, some more. At that rate we’re looking for  maybe 150 more supporters. We’re praying that God will provide them by the end of 2011.

Also at this time Tomo is still in the process of joining SEND, so we can’t really go anywhere till she’s appointed as a missionary as well. SEND’s policy is that they will only send a couple if both husband and wife are comitted to being missionaries, working in full time ministry. I was appointed back in 2007, and Lord willing Tomo will be appointed by the end of January. The final step in becoming a SEND missionary is being interviewed by the board at their headquarters in Michigan, where we’ll be going for Candidate Orientation in January. The application process is rather extensive, and Tomo has been busy writing essays and filling out questionaries, but she just sent in the final part of the written application, so all that’s left is the in person interview.

Once that’s done, the only thing keeping us here is the support. We’re hoping to set an official departure date as soon as Tomo is appointed. We have been praying that God will get us out of here by the end of 2010. However it appears that we won’t be able to go on partial support as we had hopped. This means that I’ll still be working full time as well as trying to raise support so we might push back our target departure date to summer 2011. Much of that will depend on how support raising goes  during the next two months. We took a break after getting married, so we’re just starting to raise support together. If it looks like we’re making some good progress in the next two months, then we’ll probably push forward with our goal of getting out of here by the end of 2010.

In the last month we’ve met with two families to talk about supporting us, and had wonderful times of fellowship in the process. We’d like to be meeting with at least one family a week, hopefully more once we really get rolling. Please be praying for boldness and diligence on our part during the next two months. Pray that we can get on the phone and call people and churches and get appointments to share our ministry with others who want to join us in reaching the Japanese for Christ.

In addition to financial support, we also really need to meet new people and churches. If you know anyone who might be interested in helping to send missionaries to Japan, please let us know, and talk to them about us. If you give us their contact information, we’ll call them up. Also please let us know what church you go to, and maybe talk to your missions pastor about us.

 For more information about how you can help us get to Japan, check out our November newsletter:http://gloryspeaking.com/files/folders/newsletters/entry194.aspx

My (Tomo’s) mom, who was visiting us in California for a week and a half, flew back to Japan this morning. We enjoyed her company very much and we are very thankful for the blessed time we had together. She is a very busy woman with multiple ministry and family responsibilities, so I was glad to have her over for a little bit of a relaxing time. She enjoyed getting decent hours of sleep every night and not having to worry about all the responsiblities. We were also able to meet with some of the Master’s College graduates who came to Tokyo on missions trips in the past. I was very much encouraged and even surprised by the love and passion those young people had for the churches and people in Japan. Many of them expressed interests in going back to Japan either short term or long term to do missions work, and I’m very excited to see what God will do in Japan with these people. (“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” -Matthew 9:37-38)

Now things are back to normal, and I have to catch up on homework! for the Bible classes I’m taking three times a week. I’m working on these classes because it’s part of SEND’s requirement for a missionary appointee. I’ve been enjoying the classes very much.

We are also planning to send out our November newsletter this month. If you’re not receiving our bi-monthly newsletters or monthly e-mail update and want to receive them, just let us know and we’ll add you to our mailing list. Our e-mail address is: daveandtomo@gloryspeaking.com 

Thanks for reading and I hope you will have a great week!

Last Sunday I got the opportunity to fill in for my dad, preaching at our home church (Cross Road Church) in San Juan Capistrano, CA. So, this week, rather than writing a long blog post, I’m posting the audio recording of my sermon. I’m a bit more accustomed to teaching in Bible Studies, as I was leading our High School youth Group for the past 6 years (just stepped down a few months ago to focus more on support raising, can’t wait to get to Japan), needless to say this was quite a bit different. Preaching in English is challenging enough; it’s a bit daunting thinking that I’ll one day be doing this in Japanese (Lord willing). But here’s your chance to hear how I’m progressing, so, critique away. Just go easy on me, this is only the third time I’ve gotten to preach in Sunday service.

“3 Reasons the Pure in Heart are Blessed” – Download MP3

It’s my (Tomo’s) turn to write the blog again and I have a couple exciting news!

1. David and I had our first Partner Development appointment together last week!

We had a nice time sharing about Japan and our ministry vision (which is to evaluate the spiritual needs of the Japanese people, plant new churches where there are none, and disciple Japanese Christians.) We are looking forward to meeting with more people to share about Japan!

2. I was made an Approved Candidate with SEND!

For the last several months I’ve been in the application process for SEND International, the missions organization that David is already a member of. I’ve finished the part 1 of the application and now in part 2. Right now I’m working on my personal doctrinal statement, where I have to state what I believe in my own words with Scripture references about 16 topics that SEND provides. The only things I can use to answer these hard questions are the Bible and a concordance. So far it’s been very challenging. I have a general idea about most of the topics but writing it out in a way that makes sense to someone else and providing Scrpiture references for it is very hard. Having to do it in my second language adds to the challenge too.

Also, I was officially invited to come to Candidate Orientation Program in January to complete the application process. This also means a trip to Michigan! I hear it can get very cold in Michigan in January, but I’m pretty excited to see different parts of the US (so far I’ve seen Southern California and some parts of Northern California, Grand Canyon and the Mojave Desert.)

3. My mom’s coming to visit this week!

She’s arriving Thursday, 29th and will leave on the 9th of November. I’m very excited to see her and hang out for about a week and a half!

So that was a little update on what’s going on in my life. I hope everyone’s having a great week!

I recently finished studying Exodus in my devotions and towards the end came across an encouraging passage, from a support raising standpoint, at least. Here it is:

Moses said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “This is the thing that the LORD has commanded. Take from among you a contribution to the LORD. Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the LORD’s contribution: gold, silver, and bronze; blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen; goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, and goatskins; acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, and onyx stones and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece.
Exodus 35:4-9

In the context of the rest of Exodus, I found it slightly puzzling that God would ask Israel to donate to the cause of building the Tabernacle for two reasons. First, God did not need anything from Israel, and second, Israel did not deserve to be asked.

God had been taking care of everything for Israel up till this point. God negotiated their release from Pharaoh, decimated the country of Egypt, defeated its army, handed Egypt’s wealth to Israel, led them with a pillar of cloud and fire, and then when they got hungry rained down bread from heaven. They didn’t have to rally, take up arms, or even forage for food. Now, all of the sudden, He asks Israel to bring materials to build the Tabernacle, and appoints men to do the work of building it. He clearly could have made the Tabernacle Himself and told the people to worship Him there.

Israel didn’t deserve to participate in this grand undertaking. The building of the Tabernacle happened shortly after the incident with the Golden Calf. All these people now building a house of worship for God, were the same people who utterly betrayed Him and worshipped a man made golden cow, and praised IT for freeing them from Egypt. Clearly these people were not worthy of being involved in so holy an undertaking.

The fact that God invited Israel to participate in His work, despite the fact that they were not necessary, nor worthy, tells us that God desires people to be involved in the work He is doing, and that He will use even the greatest of sinners for the most holy of tasks. This is great news for us, and it reminds us of what an incredible privilege it is to do the work God calls us to. And more specifically in this passage we see that giving in particular is a great privilege. Suddenly when God decided to do something rather than pouring out all the resources in some miraculous way (as He had done numerous times previously), He decides to provide the needed resources through the generosity of His people. In very much the same way God provides the resources needed so that His people can carry out His work.

All that said, if there is anyone reading this who is of a generous heart and wants to participate in God’s work, we invite you to partner with us as a monthly financial supporter so that we can go to Japan and spread the Gospel as Christ commanded in the great commission. If that’s you, just send me an email: daveandtomo@gloryspeaking.com. We hope and pray that God will instill the same heart of generosity in believers today as He did in the hearts of the people of Israel long ago:
 

And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, and said to Moses, “The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the LORD has commanded us to do.” So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, “Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more.
Exodus 36:3-7