Isle of the Rising Sun

The team just returned from Tokyo, Japan. I have to say the society seems like a utopia. Tokyo is a town of 33 million people, wow. One might think it would be like New York City... smog, traffic, garbage, etc., but this town is pristine. There is concrete in every direction and no noticeable trash. It was amazing. The people are very kind and go out of their way to help you. On the outside it looks good, but on the inside it is very damaged. Spiritually the culture is in darkness. Ancestor worship, Shinto, and Buddhism are the main religions and they are not even practiced. Less than .2% of the people of Tokyo are Christians. Watching the people, I would guess position, power, and possessions are the gods of Japan. The missionary said the following about the Japanese: 80% of the husbands in Tokyo commit adultery; 30% of high school girls participate in subsidized dating (sexual acts for money); and within the last 3 years there have been over 35,000 suicides. Many of these suicides are high schoolers. These facts shows the spiritual brokenness.

The team mainly did general seed sowing and looked for opportunities to share Christ with the Japanese. There were over 100 conversations that allowed us to share a brief testimony, and we passed out over 500 pamphlets that gave them a chance to receive a free DVD about Christ. One girl received a Bible from a member of the team and she said she never held a Bible before...that breaks my heart. Many of us have multiple Bibles in our homes and this was the first time she has ever held a Bible. She said she would read it all. Please pray she not only reads it all, but also accepts Christ as her Savior and shares Him and His Word with others.

The missionary team in Tokyo was a great team. They were very organized and have a God-sized vision for Tokyo. It was great to see them in action. They took us all over the town - literally. Ministry was different in Tokyo...there were many things that our team could do and were willing to do, but it didn't fit well within the Japanese culture. It was really good for the missionaries to help us adjust our scope for the team so we could be more effective.

What did this mission trip teach me? 1. Japan is one of the largest unreached people groups. You wouldn't think it, but it is true. 2. The battle in Japan is a spiritual battle, and we as a church need to pray for Japanese leaders to rise up to embrace Christianity. 3. Japan needs more missionaries. Currently, there are 16 families that minister to 33 million people. There are certainly more lessons I learned on the trip, but those are some of the nuggets.

I will continue to pray for the Japanese and the missionaries that are there. Hopefully, one day many believers will rise up from the population and lead the country in revival. The Japanese are very dedicated to their work...can you imagine if all the Japanese were fired up for God?

Jeff Carlisle

The Cities of the Black Hills

“Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore WE OUGHT TO SUPPORT PEOPLE LIKE THESE, THAT WE MAY BE FELLOW WORKERS FOR THE TRUTH.

-3 John 5-8

The often neglected New Testament book of 3 John depicts the Apostle John writing to encourage a man named Gaius, who has apparently been faithfully hosting and sending on traveling missionaries who have come through his city. John commends Gaius for this practice and exhorts him to continue so that he can be a “fellow worker for the truth.” This seems to be a rather lofty title for someone who is simply opening up his home and being hospitable to brothers in need, yet John labels Gaius without hesitation.

So what does this have to do with our College Spring Break Mission Trip to South Dakota? This text is important to me as I reflect on our trip for two reasons:

1) The family that hosted us (Stan & Diana Bricker) was absolutely wonderful. They are empty-nesters who bought a five-bedroom house so that they could host mission teams and other “fellow workers” coming through their area. Our team learned so much from them about what it looks like to live faithful lives doing what God has called you to do. The Brickers’ ministry is very similar to Gaius’. They don’t have fancy titles or hold lofty positions, yet they are using what God has given them to faithfully serve His church and bring Him glory.

2) The other reason I think of Gaius when I think about our trip is because of what we actually did as a team while we were there. We prayed. We met local pastors. We tried to encourage them. And then we prayed some more. It’s hard to make a lot of great “mission trip testimonies” out of that. And that’s my point.

Our work in South Dakota was largely thankless and unnoticeable. The cities of the Black Hills are not all that different now that our team has returned to Bowling Green. Our work was humbling and trying, not because it was difficult, but because it provided so little visible results.

Here is where the example of Gaius is both challenging and inspiring. Did he host missionaries because it brought him fame? Did cleaning dishes and re-ordering his house after their departure feel like ministry? Probably not. And yet he is called a “fellow worker for the truth.”

It’s amazing and humbling to think about how God uses small acts of faithfulness (like praying for hurting pastors, hosting hungry college students, and welcoming traveling missionaries) to bring glory to His Name, even when it doesn’t bring glory to ours. May we always be faithful to the Lord and all the good works He prepares in advance for us to do, whether they are big or small in our eyes.

Matt Haste

Well, is it what you expected?

That is what I was asked several times while in Honduras during the week of March 10-17, 2007. The trip was my first mission trip since coming to serve at Living Hope and I think many people enjoyed “breaking the new guy in”. The trip was a joy and the people on our team made serving Christ together a real delight.

I served on the evangelism team and spent much of the day waiting for services to come together so that people would hear the Gospel before they moved on to the medical or dental clinics. Honduran time works a little differently that the typical busy, on-the-go, American clock. The people are in no rush and we spent a lot of time waiting for them to arrive so we could move forward with the service. During those times I decided to mingle with the people around the village of Los Trojes and share as much of the Gospel as I could with my less than impressive Spanish. In my wandering, I discovered several things.

First, I talked with many people who were very, very poor, yet they were very joyful. They attributed this joy to either their relationship with God or their family or both. Since returning home I have had many people ask me just how far “behind” the people were or if they were “backward” because of their poverty. To some degree, most of us are probably guilty of presupposition. How many times have you heard family members and neighbors say, “All we need is our God and our family to be happy,”? Now I wonder how many people actually mean that. For many of the people in Los Trojes, their God and their family were all they had, literally, and they were happy. I am left to wonder if I say that all I need is God and my family’s love, yet, secretly I know that all of this stuff and so-called accomplishment around me is what I am using to produce what I believe is happiness. What is the daily source of my joy?

The second thing I relearned was that we are all the same. Whether we live in a city, the country or on the side of a mountain range, our great needs are heart needs. We all long to be accepted and to be loved. This should come as no surprise because God created us this way so that we would find these things in Him. I found it to be much easier to preach in Los Trojes that you might expect because I followed Jesus’ lead and went straight after the human heart. When this happens, it really makes little difference if a person is rich or poor, young or old. We are all in need of the work that only God can do in giving us a new heart and constantly bringing refreshment to this heart.

While we were in Honduras there were people that received the Gospel and there were people that were helped by our medical and dental teams. Yet, what I received most was not a sense of satisfaction in going, but encouragement in remembering that what brings us greatest joy is loving God and loving others.

Brandon Porter