My
first year and a half as a missionary was spent working as an apprentice with the
church I originally attended. After this I spent the next two years
studying Japanese. It was during this period of time that I met a beautiful
Japanese girl named Naomi. She was a Christian (of course) and my first glimpse of
her was at her
church's bowling tournament. I had been invited by another friend and had no
idea that my future wife would be there. I first saw her on lane 20 and decided then
that I wanted to be her bowling partner. As they say, it was love at first sight. However, what may have seemed easy
to want was not going to be so easy to get. In fact it took five years to get from the
bowling alley to the wedding aisle. But in June of 1992, before lots of friends
and family Naomi and I were married .And might I say, it was well worth the wait.
After language school
in October 1989, I returned home for a year of furlough. I spent the time with
Belmont Church, a non-denominational church in my community in Nashville, and
one that took the primary support and leadership in my life. Their support gave
me the ability to concentrate on studies rather than fund raising and through
their encouragement and ministry style the Lord helped me to focus in on some of
the important principles of ministry I would need for the work in Okinawa.
I returned to Okinawa in
November of 1990 and began to work with two of the three Japanese churches that
were part of Christians in Action. After a year of that work, and just
being married, I took a position with the original church I had attended before
as Japanese ministry director. It was a great opportunity to organize
ministry teams and to work with Americans and Japanese in doing evangelism and
ministry to Japanese. Our first child, Peter, was born during this time.
The experience Naomi and I
gained from this time was invaluable, and in 1994 with the counsel and blessing
of all concerned Naomi and I left Christians in Action and began working
independently with the Japanese community. Though slow and hard at times the
Lord was helping us to understand and develop a philosophy of ministry that
would be his road for the work we would walk out.
In January of '95, the Lord
blessed us with a little sister for Peter, Sayuri. He also blessed us with many
friends and contacts that would become key in our ministry in the future. To
present we continue to work in a type of ministry that we strongly feel is vital
to reaching the Japanese. It is a home based approach that centers on
personal worship to Jesus, relationship building, biblical teaching and
practical outreach. Though still small in number we believe the seeds we are
sowing and trees we are cultivating will long outlast us in the years ahead.
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