1. Tome

• 2 months in Tome, Miyagi Prefecture, 1h North of Sendai
• Countryside city made up of 8 towns/districts. We lived in Nakada.
• Mostly rice fields.

Taste Participants

• 9 other participants: 3 women from Singapore, 1 from South Korea, 1 from Taiwan, 3 from Japan, 1 from Chili
• We were the only europeans, only couple, only family (no other kids living in the house)
• We were led and trained by Hanno & Anne (South African & German), leader of Miyagi team, and Stephen & Keiko (South African & Japanese), leader of OM Japan

The house

• All living in the same house : 2 to 4 people sharing a bedroom. Only 1 bathroom and 1 toilet in a house full of women ^^
  • We have one bedroom for the 3 of us
• Countryside house : tatami, japanese sliding doors, futons
• Walls are very thin and no insulation
• No central heating
• Community life : we make up teams for cooking, grocery shopping and cleaning the house.

The program

• 3 areas of focus
  • >Spiritual teachings
    • Fundamentals of biblical faith
  • >Cultural and spiritual context
  • >Mission : go and make disciples
    • Outreach
    • Fellowship nights (home group)
    • Special events (hanami, international night…)
    • English lessons
  • >Very dense schedule : everything is planned from 7am to 6pm in the morning, every single day
    • To organize between teachings, community life and personal time à present a typical day
    • In 2 months, we were covering 75% of the missionary programme provided the first year to long-term missionaries
    • Thought for single people, very difficult to fit in as a family with a young child
  • >Saturday was our free day, until 4pm only, as we hosted the fellowship nights in our home almost every week.

2. Context

• Christians in Japan
  • 2,2% in the whole country (only 0,2% go to church)
  • 2^nd unreached nation of the world
  • In the big cities, between 1 et 2% of believers (most of the missions), on the countryside, between 1 and 0,3% of believers (some missionaries), small and medium-size cities, 0,1%, Tome, 0,05%. Very few missions.
  • Evangelical growth: -0,4%
  • Overall population is decreasing/aging, so do the churches. At this pace, in 30 years, half of the churches will have disappeared.
• Japanese mindset
  • Strongly attached to History and cultural heritage, it is part of their identity
  • Afraid that this heritage will be corrupted by foreigners
  • They will always set apart what is different
  • Their social focus is on the group and gives more importance to the group than the individual (Japanese collectivism vs French individualism)
  • Where Western cultures are mostly more sensitive to guilt, Asian cultures, especially Japan, are sensitive to shame
• Japanese spirituality
  • The nation is Shinto-Buddhist.
  • Considered as their heritage and culture, thus their own identity, both as a nation and as individuals.
  • Present in the everyday life, no separation between spirituality and public life. Leads to a lot of bonds to the spiritual world by ancestors, gods or superstitions.
    • New era/emperor and rites
  • Evangelism
    • For them, converting to Christ means
      • Denying their heritage and culture
      • Betraying their identity, nation and family
      • Abandon their dead ancestors
      • Get marginalized
    • How to make a breakthrough in such a difficult context? The only way is to try to build up relationships, connecting with people, to make them curious through our different lifestyle and then try to set them free from their bondages through the Gospel.

3. Fundamentals of faith and personal revelations
   • The Gospel
     • We have to share the whole story, from the Creation to Revelation. People don’t understand the need of a Savior if they don’t understand their sin in the first place. Start with the fall.
     • Challenging for us to reflect on how to share the whole plan of God in a complete but clear and concise manner.
   • How to make disciples (Matt. 28, 18-20 // John 14,15)
     • Learning to trust the Holy Spirit and Jesus: Godis building HIS Church
     • Point people to Jesusand walk, live and study the Bible together. Share life.
     • Each one of us is called to do it and can do it, no need of a special degree or anointing
     • Being humble, ready to be out of our comfort zone
     • Obey Jesus
   • The Church
     • Not a building, a system, a lithurgy
     • Very simple: believers being together with God, reading the Bible, baptising new believers and breaking the bread
   • The Kingdom (Mark 16, 15-20)
     • We are in Christ and He gives His own authority to each one of us: each one of us can cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead in the name of Jesus.
     • We all have a precise role to endorse in the local church. No one is meant to just receive; we are all meant to contribute with the gifts God gave us and serve one another.
     • Effective witnessing: words, lifestyle, God’s power in our lives
     • Bring the Kingdom wherever we go: blessing people, praying for them, not just “be there”
   • Faith
   • Prayer and fasting
   • Baptism
     • No matter where, when and who is here, no need to be a Sunday with a pastor in a church: Jesus is everywhere with us!
       • Believing in the Gospel
       • Some water
       • No previous teachings other than the Gospel: people are filled with the Spirit and seeing how other believers live, they know what to expect as Jesus’ disciple
     • The Holy Spirit
     • Read and study the Bible
       • Context is key
       • A personal practise is necessary

• Through all those teachings and the context of practice, God transformed our minds and hearts so we could finally:
  • set up a real prayer life as a couple
  • communicate and share more on a spiritual level
  • reconsider our commitment to Jesus and others
    • How to be really committed in our daily lives? How to keep our missionary mindset in our everyday life? Is Jesus the center of our lives?
  • Reconsider how our local church is living the biblical truths
    • The way we practise baptism, how we reach out to the city of Strasbourg, how we make disciples, are we known for our love for one another…
  • Go deeper in the experience of God’s presence, in our relationship with Him
    • Depend more on Him and His Spirit on a daily basis

4. Conclusion

So, in the end, whats the point of it all ?

Did we transformed japan or city? No

Did we have an impact ? probably… certainly! we have been there, we prayed there, we met many different people there, we know the country better, more than ever it is in our hearts and prayers (Chika)

Are we preparing to go back ? Are we becoming long-term missonaries ? No. At least it is not the next step of our lives

So, is this experience a failure, a waste of time? certainly not !

Because we were there, according to His will!

And the miraculously extraordinary thing is not that we tried to do something for God and the spreading of the Gospel, this should be just basic normal attitude and responsability,

the very miraculously extraordinary thing is that God is at work in our lives, that God is here, demands to do, can do, and does!

IF we trust Him. believing is not enough, it’s just the starting point.

If we set ourselves as disciples, as apprentices, he transforms us, he transforms our souls and spirits.

Has it been easy ? surely not !! there has been a lot of

– spiritual fight   – bad or wrong things put into light

– it has been physically, mentally, socially, and spiritualy dens and exhausting, and inconfortable

– there has been feelings of lack of control , lack of liberty

– of frustration, of uselessness, of lonelyness, despite having very rarely the possibility to actually be alone

– our pride has been smashed down, we’va felt rejected sometimes

– we had to go beyond our limits, beyond our security, beyond our comfort !

But nobody grows in comfort, in now ways, from body, to mind, to soul !

Comfort is sitting and waiting to die, and it actually comes faster.

It is pretending, i completely know myself now, i know everything of you God, and closing the door…

It has been daaamn hard, but He transformed our personnal lives, our couple life, our familly life, our body of christ life, our son & daughter of God life…

We were in front of many spiritals problems and lacks in our lives before coming, sometimes for years, we already knew what was good to do for many of them, but were repeatedly not capable to put it into practice

Through difficulty and out of comfort he transformed us by revealing His real actual living presence, by revealing His real actual living presence He developped our wish our desire of Him, through developping our desire of Him he gave us the strength and will and occasions needed to let Him actually work in our lives and transform us !

This cannot happen by our selves, only God can reveal himself His Glory

Where we ready for all this ? No ! But HE does not calls us to be ready ! He calls us to let Him prepare us !

But Yes too, we were ready for this because it happened, and it happened because we came to this crazy situation with the attitude to be available to and want to know His will

Close to the end of the programm, we have been proposed to experience a « faith journey ». Which means going out , for 2 days, by group of three, with nothing. Actually like the apostles who walked from town to town without knowing what they would eat and where they would sleep…

At this point of the programm we were 8 adults remaining, so we were 3 groups of participants. the two other groups went out the straight way, with nothing but their cloths, and just one phone for one of the group.

You know what ?  they reached a destination, they ate, they sleep under a roof, and had unusual occasions to share the gospel !

Why do i talk only about them, not including us ? It has been probably the more insecure and uncomfortable situation of all the program, i could not go over the idea of taking the risk for Maiko to sleep in the street, plus we don’t speak japanese, and many other ideas you can easily imagine. But  we fought all this, and finally found the boldness to blindly trust (still i have not been able to go out without at least a few money and my phone, but Caro did not know at first and did it straight). So we tried to hear about the direction we should go…. and nothing. White silence. And we tried gain. white silence. We then decided to do some classic prayer walking, but met no special occasion. We stopped in front of a kindergarten, whose director told we could come, and we had an interesting time, even spirtually, but it lasted one hour… and back to nothing, no inspiration, no sign, no occasion. So we decided to go back home, and there decided to accompany the others in prayer. And praying out loud together was something unusual to us. And God used that finally private time in prayer to also free Caro from long lasting heavy burden ! Day two, early morning, still nothing. Prayer. sharing our feelings. White silence. We decide by ourselves to target a city, and go out to wait for a bus at a bus stop (if its god will a bus sure will arrive), nothing… so we decide to walk in a small shops direction to try to have informations how to reach this city, and less than a hundred meters away from the bus stop, a bus passes by ! Ok ! wasn’t His plan… At the shop : only the train goes there and the station is far away… ok. So lets walk in Stephen’s house direction, maybe he can take us to the train, sending a whatsapp message to ask, still walking in his house direction, message not read, walking, message not read, walking till fionally reaching their house ! the 2 cars are there, message still unread, and at this very moment it is now too late for the train. Ok God, really not your plan ! so we just continue the road leading to the forest. And it has not been even 2 minutes that we were away that « message read » « stephen ansewer » sorry jsut see your message, in think its too late for the train now…

Definetly not your plan for us god !!

And arriving at some calm and nice and restfull place with nothing to do in front of us, we undesrtood His will : my plan is that I give you rest! because I know how much you need it

If i look back at this moment, it feels like Ha was saying « my work in you here is done »

And making His work in us perfectly complete exactly by leading us to that moment of rest…

making His work in us perfectly complete in showing us in a very tangible way He takes care of us, and knows when we need rest, and gives rest

Because He does not ask without providing for what we actually need, before, during, and after !

TRUST ME says the almighty perfect father

TRUST ME says our God

TRUST ME says our perfect and saint eternal father

There are no place in life I will lead you to that will arm you!

There are no place I will lead you to that will not be good for you !

May it be joyful, peaceful, aboundant, or dry, tough, difficult, painful

There are no place in life I will lead you to that will arm you!

There are no place I will lead you to that will not be good for you !

There are no place I will lead you to I will not give you what you actually need

Trust me, follow me, let me lead you in this journey to come closer to me,

trust me to lead you Home

Trust me

put your 3 year old hand in mine, and trust me