A new path for the Irwin Family
On Friday, April 12th, 2019 (Heisei 31) God put a word into my life and accompanied it by an urgency that I couldn’t ignore. He said, in no uncertain terms, to go to Japan.
And that was it.
We took that next week praying for more direction, and more information, like an hour a night praying. He confirmed He would take care of things and not to worry. So we prayed more, and more and we started reaching out to sending agencies and missionaries over that second week, trying to find some specifics, looking for where God would have us, the right fit.
I felt like I had half of a conversation, and I was, as Rachel from MovingWorks.org said, I was knocking on doors (and they have 6 amazing Christ center videos to share with the Japanese people in your lives, and a great chance to see what people are struggling with in Japan, so you can better pray for them).
I talked to the pastor of our home church, Calvary Chapel Paris, at an Arby’s to seek instruction and direction, because he and his family were missionaries in Costa Rica for 7 years, and I wanted to see how the Lord led him there and how he was able to, how his home church played a sending role, how he chose the city they ended up in, how his raising support happened, and most importantly, how was raising a family in a foreign mission field.
That was April 25th, and they had just had their monthly board meeting. He invited me to the next one to share “my vision” at the next Board of Elders, on May 20th, still 3 days from now.
See this is what I keep telling people, because they ask, what am I going to do, plant a church? Be a pastor? What is your vision?
And we don’t have one. I have a command from God to go, so I’ve been scrambling around for a month just trying to figure out how to obey.
I’ve learned through not obeying, it’s way better to obey. God of all the universe, creator of heaven and earth, creator of time, has a plan for my life. He wants me to be apart of His plan. How amazing He is to include us! And of all people, me! (a wretched sinner, fortunately saved by grace!)
We don’t really know the time frame either, it’ll take a few months to get a Certificate of Eligibility from the Japanese government, then a few months for a visa, sell the house and van, and about everything else we own, and catch a plane to…. somewhere.
As of right now, pray for Ibaraki Prefecture, the Prefecture just north of Tokyo Prefecture. Those poor people are going to have to deal with me, and they will need all the prayer they can get. As well as pray me me and my family to help us… just all around, direction, discernment, wisdom, details, peace, just everything.
We think we’ve narrowed our focus to Tsukuba City, it has a university there where my wife and I can take Japanese language classes. It is in rural Japan, and is only like 150,000 people large. So you know, not a lot going on. Japan has a population of 127 million people, 5 times that of Texas, with half the land size, and only half a percentage of them identify as Christian. Half a percent! One of the towns we are praying about, Kasumigaura, is 60,000 large, (3 times the size of Paris, Texas), has zero churches and zero missionaries.
In the area we are looking for, the ratio is about 1 missionary per 8,000 people. That’s a lot of people to reach and turn toward Christ, through deep relationships, and learning the culture and language. More on that later.
While doing my research on the Japanese culture and their 8 million god pantheon, I was introduced to Ame-nomi-naka-nushi (ya that’s a mouth full, I’m can’t even say it without reading it a few times). Read this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenominakanushi
Sound like anyone you’ve heard of?
God came, and created all nations, all people! His finger prints are everywhere, we have just… forgotten Him, turned away, added more and more, and we need to return to Him; the living God at the center of the universe, and let Him into our lives, to have a personal relationship with our creator. He is a good God, mark these words in your heart, He is alive!
Furoshiki Family 
2 thoughts on “The Call”