Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Why Japan? (A guest post from my husband)





As the Van Clan prepares to board a plane and move to Japan tomorrow, I'm sure some of you are thinking why are you going there? From the first year or two of our marriage, Renee' and I talked quite a bit about how we'd like to become missionaries after our time in the Air Force. However I honestly thought that would probably be to Kenya, like my mom and dad; but God thought differently:-) 

At this point I need to take you back to July 16, 2000. We were visiting a church pastored by some good friends of my mom and dad's, just weeks before the Air Force transferred us to Yokota Air Base, just outside Tokyo, Japan. In the middle of the sermon the pastor, Ivan, stopped preaching, looked at us and said that "God is preparing you for the mission field while you're in the AF. And after retirement from the AF, Uncle Sam will be paying you as missionaries." That impressed us so much we kept that Sunday's church bulletin where we wrote that down, and still have it to this day.




And you know what? God did prepare us to go back to Japan while we were there because of the Air Force! We spent seven years there (2000-2007) and God put a love in our hearts for the people of Japan that was inexplicable. We began to wonder if maybe that's where we would go back to someday, but were quite unsure of how we would go back and in what capacity. 

But God wasn't unsure, He had a plan! Last fall Renee' was hired as a teacher by Christian Academy in Japan. This is a Christian International school just 12 miles from where we were stationed with the Air Force. And as Pastor Ivan prophesied; the AF will help support us through my retirement pay as we serve God in Japan.

So over the course of the past few months; we prepared to move with our 4 kids to Higashi-kurume, a suburb of Tokyo. We have thrown stuff away, given it away and sold it until we can fit the possessions we need to take into 12 suitcases, 6 backpacks and a carry on in a pear tree;-)

Even though we had to get rid of the majority of our "stuff", we never gave it a second thought (ok, maybe I struggled a bit getting rid of my lifetime's collection of tools!) as it is just that; it's stuff, with no eternal value, stuff that could actually be a hindrance to following God's will. Plus there is such joy in knowing you are following God's call/plan, that it is worth any sacrifice! 

Although Japan is a modern first world country it is spiritually poor with less than 1% of the population considered Christian. Tokyo proper has a little over 13 million people, with the Tokyo metropolitan area having almost 38 million people. So, there is a HUGE mission field with 37 million people who don't know about Jesus Christ just in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area alone! 

And without Jesus Christ there is great hopelessness. Thanks to my awesome brother David McDaniel making a video       ( http://youtu.be/EAtvixTnIZE ) with the same title as this post (he used it first though:-); there are some figures I'd like to share. 11% of Japanese wish they'd never been born, 85% of young Japanese wonder why they exist. 

Japan has the sixth highest suicide rate in the world. Around 30,000 people a year take their own lives. That's 100 people a day, three every hour! Talk about a dark place in need of some hope! And thanks to Jesus Christ we have the answer for this hopelessness; so why shouldn't we go to Japan? In all of Japan there is only 1 missionary for every 56,000 Japanese. I hope that our going there will challenge many people to follow us and be a part of what God will do in the coming years:-)

We have heard and read so much of how many people feel that Japan is on the cusp of revival. And we are beyond ready to go to help usher that in! Every day I am so anxious to get there and see what God has in store for us in. And there is such joy and peace in knowing we are truly doing what God has called us to do.

So I leave you with one last quote from my friend David McDaniel. "Why Japan? The real question is, why not Japan?" Please pray for us as we leave tomorrow morning! Pray we continue to hear and follow God's leading; and pray that Japan will see revival like never before! 
   


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