This morning at church, a man was baptized into the faith. Later in the day, he gave the testimony of his salvation. It’s always amazing to see how God leads people to Himself. This man was the judo teacher of one of the little girls at church, and it was seeing her faith in God and through a few conversations with her that made him interested in coming to church.

Please remember the work of the ministry here in Japan in your prayers. My church, Mitaka Evangelical Church, is the only church in all of Japan that is paedobaptist, paedocom (weekly, with wine!), and postmil.

It may seem strange for me to say this while I prepare to leave this ministry and not return to it for the rest of my life, but I am dying to see others come here to work in this mission field. We need pastors and teachers, people who are willing to come and minister for a lifetime. When compared to missions in Africa, South America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe, Japan doesn’t seem as needy or desperate. No starving children with distended bellies, no gunfights on the streets, no people living without running water, electricity, and gas.

Japanese people are peaceful and prosperous on the outside, but they are rotting away on the inside. OB/GYNs in Japan kill more babies than deliver live ones and people think nothing of it. The spiritual vacuum in this country is destroying its people and nobody is coming to help them. Not anywhere near enough people, anyway. Unbelievable though it may seem, there are probably more postmillennialists in Iraq than there are in Japan.

Though there are no physical dangers or privations in a city like Tokyo, which makes it seem like a comparatively “easy” mission field, it’s not. Japanese people simply do not convert. One reason is because Japan is already, in some ways, a Christian nation. Japanese people are honest and hard-working. They already have many of the blessings of the covenant (Deuteronomy 28) without having had to believe in God, so they don’t think He is necessary. American mission boards that count the number of converts per $ consider this country to be a bad “investment” and a futile mission field.

At times of weakness (which happen by an awful lot), I feel like agreeing with those board members, but on days like today, I know they are wrong. It just takes more work. And I won’t be here to do it….