Please pray for Japan

Please pray for Japan. Recently many natural disasters have hit Japan in its top tourist attraction regions, Kansai and Hokkaido, which I only visited relatively recently in 2015. I remember sobbing real hard on the plane for both trips: was watching a movie on the hard life of Oshin on the Kansai trip and a documentary on the Sendai Tsunami on the Hokkaido trip. This made me think of a talk given by an OMF missionary whose field is in Japan. It’s tough being a missionary there, so please pray for the missionaries too.

Morling Transform Mission Group 7Aug, 2018

Speaker: Andrew Wong (OMF, missionaries in Japan)

Andrew and Jo are members at West Sydney Chinese Christian Church. After study at SMBC, they have been working in Japan since 2012. Their ministry is currently with Sendai Evangelical Church and they have a long-term commitment to working with survivors of the 2011 tsunami.

Here are some of his thoughts about being a missionary in Japan:

·         It’s a privilege to be a missionary.

·         Generational missiological differences: Missionaries who were on the field 30-40 years ago have a very different thinking. Andrew doesn’t think a missionary is a pastor, but more of a relationship builder.

·         No grandparents around: Huge stress with an under 1y.o. child on the field. Feel isolation.

·         Stop buying anything! Packing is awful. Need to be very organized so you can find the things.

·         Discovering mission agency culture: Think about the target culture as well as cross culturally with other missionaries.

·         National stereotypes are sometimes too real.

·         Anger and frustration with those back at home: While you toil on the field, you look on Facebook and see the worldliness of the people back home.

·         More (kids+age)= harder work.

·         Self doubt: What am I doing? Am I worth the money people are pouring into me? I was much more productive in my last job. Resilience needed for long term ministry. Single people struggle with loneliness.

·         Your kids will break your heart: “I was bullied everyday at school.” “I miss my grandparents.” “I don’t want to go back.”

·         Andrew missed church in Australia, but was also frustrated with it when he got back! Japanese church in Japanese and doesn’t feel like church, yet he sees lukewarmness in his home church.