Every year WEC welcomes short-term workers, from a week to a year or more! This year in late Spring four univeristy students from Singapore visited Japan on a short-term mission. Here, one of them shares about her experiences.
Konnichiwa! I am Jane, and my friends and I from Singapore went to Japan for a month-long mission trip under a mission program known as Gcube, short for God’s Global Glory. The 4 of us are university students and we are all members of Varsity Christian Fellowship, the student movement known as FES that runs the programme. The Gcube program led us through 9 months of preparatory work and training, culminating in our trip to visit the WEC team in Shiga and Kyoto.
The Trip and WEC ministries
During our month-long stay in Japan, we spent one week in each of 4 WEC-planted churches - Megumi, Kusatsu, Rakusei, and Kaori - and experienced the different ministries of these churches, as well as the lives of the missionaries and pastors there. We have a lot of happy memories of our stays with them.
At each church we did a variety of different activities. Each church invited people to a “Singapore Day”, where we cooked local food like chicken rice and
kaya (coconut cream) toast, and told them more about Singapore, our culture and everyday life through a slide show. On Sundays, at their church services, we usually put up an evangelistic skit and shared our testimonies.
At Kusatsu church we helped Jurgen and Gisela with tracting at the train station, singing and smiling and handing out tracts to passers-by who, mostly, politely declined. We also joined in their English classes and talked to the English class students, and joined Ben and Jessica in the Tuesday prayer meetings. We had the chance to visit a church member in an elderly home and even missionary-kid Silas’ elementary school!
Our next church was Rakusei church, where Pastor Okumura, who is very musically gifted, used music as an evangelistic tool. We went to 2 gospel choir practices: the Kyoto Praise of Grace (KPG) Gospel Choir; and the Rakusei Gospel Choir. The KPG gospel choir was a real eye opener because out of about 30 choir members, there were only 3 Christians, including Pastor Okumura and the choir director! Yet here they were singing about God’s love and mercy. We also had an Okonomiyaki food party with the church members.
We joined Pete and Edi at Kaori church in Wani after that. On the first day there we met Bee Choo and visited a Kirisutosha Gakusei Kai (KGK, Japan’s version of VCF, or IFES), university student meeting. We met students from the different universities and they shared their prayer requests and various campus reports. It was amazing, here were students praying hard for ONE Christian friend in school and we Singaporean students take all the Christian friends we have for granted. It was a real eye-opener as to the real need for Christian support in Japan. We also went to Ono School for two days to help out with Edi’s English classes. We introduced them to Singapore culture and in turn, they taught us Japanese games.
Lastly, we stayed with Martin and Julie and Carla at Megumi Church! We mostly helped out with their Children’s ministry, the toddler’s club and kid’s club. It was really tiring but very fun too! The toddler’s club involved the mothers who seemed to enjoy it more than the toddlers did. It was really an awesome way to get the mothers into a support group and for them to really bond with each other, and feel comfortable in church.
We also made a trip up to Kinomoto Church for one day to help them with tracting in the houses in the mountainous areas. We joined Martin for the members’ house crawl, where they stuffed us with delicious red bean desserts and other wonderful foods! Miho-san brought us for two youth meetings, one at Shiga University and one at Moriyama Church. We prayed for them and shared our prayer requests too.
Impressions of the Land of the Rising Sun
Japan is a really beautiful place. Everything is clean and efficient and there is so much culture that has been untouched despite economic progress. Along with every single symbol of modernity present are old temples, traditional shops and the occasional lady in a kimono. We went to a few tourist-sites like the Golden Pavilion and Shinkyogoku where we had a lot of fun as visitors. And we had the chance to take peeks at the usual life of a Japanese person through our interactions with all the different people. Everything was so interesting and, being Singaporeans, we took so many photos of the various places and things we saw.
When people say that the Japanese are really polite, they aren’t kidding at all. Every church we went to, we were lavished with gifts and meal treats even though we did not know them very well. I was really intrigued by the extent of politeness that everyone is so used to, from bowing to each other, the repeating of “good phrases” and the constant return of gifts. And people would probably never tell you when they disagree or are angry with you. On one hand, courtesy is a very good thing to have; on the other, we never knew if we stepped on anyone’s toes due to our ignorance. But overall, we really felt so loved and well taken care of by everyone.
While we were preparing for our trip, the fact that Japan had very few Christians was always brought up. However, I still was not prepared for the spiritual climate of the place. Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples are very common sights on the streets. Japan is not a creative-access country where there is discrimination against missionary work. Yet, it is still so difficult for the people to accept Christ. I could not understand why a person would be willing to attend church events and services but not want to believe in the good news. I thought it was so sad that a people of such graciousness are unable to receive God’s gift of salvation because they cannot understand that there is no need for a repayment!
Prayer pointers for Japan
*Pray that the Japanese would come to a realization that salvation has no strings attached, and a willingness to accept it thankfully.
*Pray against the strongholds of the society such as the pressure to accumulate material possessions and accomplishments. Pray against rising atheism and skepticism especially among the younger generations
*Pray for the Christians to continue to be faithful, especially those who do not have a support group for fellowship and encouragement. Pray for the Christians to be a bold witness in their schools/workplaces, despite having so few of them around.
And what is next?
The tugging of ‘normal’ life in Singapore is very great with all the demands and pleasures of life here. Sometimes, it feels as if the month I spent in Japan was just a surreal experience! Before I came home, I was determined to not allow myself to slip back into normality and forget all the experiences I had in Japan; or the urgent need for the gospel to be shared there too - especially when our drudgery of studying begins again in a few months’ time. Pray for each of the four of us who went, that being back in Singapore would not cloud the fervor we had during the trip.
I do not know yet what is going to come after the next couple of years. I am convinced that I am called to play a part in God’s salvation plan but I am not sure exactly which part – a goer or a sender. Since I am going to be a teacher in the future, I pray that God would use my training for his glory in whatever capacity I am called to serve in. And should he call me to the field, I pray that I would have the courage to follow it joyfully and obediently. And should it be Japan, I know that there are many people I would love to serve alongside with!
