David and I have a prayer guide for Japan called “Operation Japan” and it has a lot of information on Japan and prayer item for each day. It starts with basic info and prayer items for Japan as a whole, and then goes prefecture by prefecture each week from north to south. It starts on Jan. 1st and covers the entire country in a year! It’s very informative and helps to know more about Japan and pray very specifically. So I thought I’d share them on the blog on a semi-weekly basis. It’s already a week and a half into February, but it’s never too late to start praying! So here goes the first ones! (I changed the dates for the prayer items to start from Feb. 11th instead of Jan. 1st so we can start right now.)
<Japan>
- Population: 126,824,166
- Size: 372,244km
- Density: 340 people/km
- Cities with no churches: 10
- Towns/villages with no churches: 1,633
- Churches/person: 1:16,293
<Prayer items>
Feb. 11: Pray for salvation for Japan. May the 126 million Japanese people in 47 million households come to the Savior! Pray that in some way each home will have some contact with the gospel this year.
Feb. 12: Pray for Japanese living abroad (over 911,000 in 2003). Pray for the Japanese churches in different parts of the world. Pray that those who have found faith abroad or have become interested in the gospel, may be able to be integrated into church in Japan.
Feb. 13: Pray for the approximately 1.9 million foreign people living in Japan. Fom Korea there are 625,000, from China 424,000, from Brazil 268,000. There are approximately 2,000 Protestant missionaries serving in Japan. Ask the Lord for a speacial blessing for each of them as they work there. May they be effective servants of Chirst.
Feb. 14: Pray for the Japanes Christians, that each may grow and be obedient to the Lord. Church membership is only 0.44% of the population. Pray for the non-Christian family members. Most Christians are the only ones in their families who believe.
Feb. 15: The Bible teaches us to “pray for the king”. Let us pray for the salvation of the emperor and his imperial family. Pray that this year they may rad the Bible, and be attracted to the King. Pray for the salvation of this country’s “leaders in high positions”, for Cabinet and Diet members, local councilmen, and other government employees. Pray that the few Christian politicians and government workers might represent Jesus well.
Feb 16: Pray for the effective ministry of the several hundred Japanese missionaries who are now laboring around the world for Christ. Ask the Lord to raise up more people to go. As these missionaries return to Japan for deputation and rest, may their example of dedication stir up each local church to hae a burden to reach their own communities.
*All information and prayer requests taken from “Operation Japan -Prayer Guide- Third Edition” -Japan Evangelical Missionary Association, 2005. To purchase a copy of “Operation Japan” book or the Interactive CD version, go to:
http://www.jema.org/joomla15/index.php?option=com_banners&task=click&bid=10.