Dispatches: Japan 2024

Mission: Japan 2024

By Gary Fallesen, Climbing For Christ

Wednesday, Sept. 25

My spirit was troubled throughout the day and night yesterday. As I prayed in the night, I asked God, “If I’m NOT supposed to GO to Japan, please deny Damson’s visa.” Damson was approved on Monday after several weeks of paperwork with the Japan embassy in Lilongwe, Malawi. He went to pick it up this morning before his scheduled afternoon flight and he was told they couldn’t give him his visa. No reason was offered. When I woke up early today his WhatsApp message was waiting for me. I took this as God’s answer. Elaine and I prayed. We weren’t sure if this was a closed door for now or for good. But God’s will be done. Mission: Japan 2024 was postponed.

Introduction

“They have wandered through all the mountains and all the hills, across the face of the earth, yet no one has gone to search for them.” – Ezekiel 34:6 (NLT)

We were in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel in our daily chronological Bible study. We read how God told the prophet he was a watchman responsible for those who are not warned about their fate.

We are watchmen, too.

With that role comes great responsibility. If we fail to deliver the Good News to those near and far we are guilty of disobedience. God’s instruction is crystal clear. “GO, and make disciples ofall!”

So, we prepare to GO again.

When people heard we were headed for Japan, they said, “You haven’t been there before, have you?” Or, “That’s a new country for you, isn’t it?” We have actually been to Japan – on a three-day, two-night stopover – on our 2022 around-the-world ministry trip. We met up with long-time Climbing For Christ member and supporter Hershel Peppers, an American teaching in Japan since 1996. He took us to religious sites and introduced us to an ex-pat whose family has worked in Japan for generations. As we debated whether Japan was reached or unreached with the Gospel, I felt the Lord calling C4C to return to Japan. That resulted in Mission: Japan 2024, which is scheduled Sept. 25-Oct. 6.

We are headed for Japan’s Alps. Yes, Japan has “Alps.”

“The Japan Alps, or Japanese Alps, are a series of large mountain ranges which bisect the main island of Honshu, spanning across the centre of the country from the Sea of Japan coast in the north to the Pacific Ocean in the south,” it says in Hiking and Trekking the Japan Alps and Mount Fuji. “They are divided into three main ranges: the North Alps, the Central Alps, and the South Alps, all of which are home to some of the biggest mountains in the country, including 20 peaks above the 3,000-meter (9,850-foot) mark.”

We will be carrying audio Bibles in Japanese and praying for divine appointments.

Japan, population 122.5 million, is estimated to be 68.1 percent Buddhist, 24 percent folk (or ethnic) religions, 5.5 percent non-religious (or atheist), and only 2.2 percent Christian, according to the Joshua Project, which tracks peoples and places with the least access or response to the Gospel. The Joshua Project records 120 million (or 97.9 percent of the population) as “unreached.”

Operation World (OW), a prayer guide to the nations, states: “Spiritual powers and principalities in Japan hinder the Gospel. The powers associated with idolatry in temples and ancestor worship in homes remain strong. Many Japanese claim no religion, but actually follow some rituals of Buddhism and Shintosim. Even the idea of a Creator God is foreign to the Japanese worldview.”

“Many Japanese conflate Christianity with Western culture, and many foreigners fall into the same trap,” Roger W. Lowther, a church planter in Japan, writes in The Broken Leaf: Meditations on Art, Life, and Faith in Japan.

He quotes “one of Japan’s most famous pastors, Kanzo Uchimura” imploring missionaries willing to work with Japanese Christians to establish Japanese Christianity. “The country will welcome them as God’s messengers, and will love them and honor them and revere them as its teachers and benefactors. Oh, where are they?”

We pray that our approach of equipping, empowering, and encouraging is what Pastor Uchimura is talking about.

We also join Operation World in prayer to “Ask God to remove the spirit of delusion!” The God of the Western Church is the same true God of the Japanese Church.

Our friends at Radical agree with us about Japan being unreached. See “Hard to Reach: Japan.”

But don’t tell that to our brothers in Japan. They argue that Japan is similar to the United States and much of Europe, where the people have heard but choose to ignore because their gods are money, technology, the things of this world. When the ex-pat we met mentioned C4C to his missionary father, the elder said: “That’s wonderful. God has His messengers about and if we are praying for the unreached the Lord lets us meet them.” Then he added that he thinks “Japan has been reached,” but there is a “lack of harvesters despite the harvest.”

We shall see if there is a harvest in the harder-to-reach parts of Japan. Or if sowing is the order of the trip. We are praying for direction by the Guide of guides as we head for the hills in Japan.

The final Word

“But if the watchman sees the enemy coming and doesn’t sound the alarm to warn the people, he is responsible for their captivity. They will die in their sins, but I will hold the watchman responsible for their deaths.’” – Ezekiel 33:6 (NLT)