Building a Foundation

Prepare your outside work,
Make it fit for yourself in the field;
And afterward build your house.                   ~ Proverbs 24:27

It is the end of May 2019 (Reiwa 1) and so much has happened in the last month since the Lord has guided us to Japan. Which I will give a “brief” account of here:.

After praying and seeking the Lord for more information and doing some research online for a week, not telling anyone, not sharing with anyone, but just really seeking guidance.

I reached out to several sending agencies, had a skype phone call to just introduce ourselves and see what the process is like, and what would be expected of us, what they provided, how support was provided, and we just had a lot of questions over all. We had a wonderful conversation with a young man who was back in the states and was apart of this agency, he was encouraging, sharing with us about other families that had been contacting him about going to Japan specifically in the last year. God is moving.

But I didn’t feel like that was our route, there was training and classes, and a 1-2 year finance building, and they were being sent to areas, that already had a teams and churches present, and later to learn, may be in abundance. I just didn’t feel like that was His plan for us, it seemed like more of a cookie cutter operation, and being the person I am, that wasn’t going to be our route.

I reached out to just about any Japanese missionaries I could find. Sending, what I can describe as really weird emails, to random people. They were very gracious to forward my information along and connect me with some of the best resources I have had so far on how to get to Japan, what i need to prepare for and solid believers praying for our journey. So we had a few more phone calls, some taken at really early hours, some during normal evening hours (there is a 14 hour difference between Paris, Texas and Japan, essentially they are awake, we are asleep).

I reached out to our home church pastor for more guidance, to see what he had to share, as he was a missionary before, and ideally he, and the church, would help send us. He shared great wisdom, and affirmed a few things in my life with his story of how he found his way to were he served in Costa Rica. Where the Lord is quiet, He is waiting to see how you respond, much like a teacher during a test, they have been teaching you for weeks before for this test, they are going to quietly watch you through your test to see how you did. I started to pray with my wife over Ibaraki Prefecture because He was apart of me going to Japan in 2013, and that wasn’t all for nothing. He has given me a heart for a location and a people, a familiarity with an area, might as well pray over that, with nothing else to go off of, we began praying about Koga, Oarai, Tsukuba, and Kasumigaura (a town of 60,000 that has no church or missionaries).

I was doing some research one night, as you will usually find me doing after the kids have gone to bed, and I read this great article from the YWAM Tokyo: What is God doing in Japan. It really pointed out to me the opportunity Japanese people have to slow down from their busy life. (Really, read it, it’s a great article. We’ll wait here till you get back). The Lord had already been preparing me in so many ways to be intentional and relationship to high school and college students here through some Young Life training I had received. Then a lot more “on the job” training with students and my non & new believers Bible study I was doing (and still do). So further confirmation that He has been preparing me. (and I am fully aware that I have no idea what my actual role in ministry is when I get over there, but He is coming along side, and putting my heart and my worries, and my fears at ease with how He is talking and guiding me)

There was a university in Tsukuba City, I walked through it one early morning when would get up, hours before everyone else and would roam the streets of Japan (I have this thing called Wanderlust, I’m pretty sure it’s genetic). With this new idea, I started emailing churches in that area, again, really odd, strange emails, that reminded me of a Pauline introduction. It starts with who I am, what my wife and I do in our home church, what we are being led to do, and about being there before. I’ll have to post the generic form of the email somewhere, in retrospect it felt Biblical and the form just worked with what I had to say.

A few churches emailed me back once.; which is more of a response than I get here in the states. I’d eagerly email them back in hopes that they had this other half of a conversation I’d been given. We do all this stuff, the Lord is leading, are you where we belong? Can you use us? What can we do to make this happen?

But one church in particular, emailed me back again, after the first email. The pastor friended me on Facebook (which I had to begrudgingly reactivate to have a few conversations and phone calls, seriously, if you want to know whats happening in my life, pick up a phone, text me, email me, if the Lord puts me on your heart reach out, and do that with everyone He brings to mind, have a relationship with someone else in real time) and we started a back and forth dialog. Sometimes it would take a few days for them to get back to me, I always assume that they have lives too, they are busy, and I’m sure I sound like a crazy person sometimes, because I feel that way. Then I’d get another email, and my heart would soar at what the Lord is doing in my life.

We then had a meeting scheduled with our home church, where I could talk to the elders, present “my vision” (although I just want to say, it’s more like a working plan, God said go to Japan. He didn’t say start a church, He didn’t say tear down the physical temples, He didn’t say be a pastor, which are some of the things I’m being asked by people). The working plan is get to Japan, learn the language and the culture, keep doing what I’m doing here, reaching out to the lost, showing the other sheep where the good pasture is, the safe water, and tell them about the Shepherd that showed me.

The next leg of the journey is to find financial support. I have to have a sending church, check, a receiving church, and as of last night, our time, check!!!! and now the government requires a letter of proof that I can financially support myself on a Missionary Visa.

Which is what the month of June will be, I hope, will be visiting churches, telling the people I meet there about the amazing God that is directing me, and about the Japanese people. (If you need to kill a few hours of your life, I can seriously talk forever about what the Lord is showing me in this, I have this overflowing passion that I’m afraid not everyone has time to hear) The plan, as it is now, is to find support for 2 years, that is how long everyone is telling us it will take. With the Missionary Visa, which is how we are stepping out in faith, will not allow me to work while I am in Japan. Zero hours of work can be done on this kind of Visa. Which would probably sound great to a lot of people, but I have been praying, and humbling myself and wrestling with not working, and not providing for my family. I even like my current job enough that I asked if I could actually keep it and just “telecommute”. It wasn’t a loud resounding no, but as of right now, it would take a miracle for that to happen, and I’m afraid He wants to teach me more about relying on Him, than my own works, to have my trust in Him, than in my retirement check, that He will provide for me and my family, even when I am not allowed to (makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it). God gave me this verse when I first became a believer, and it helps remind me of how He provided when I was taking my first steps of faith:

²⁶ Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
²⁸ “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; ²⁹ and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
³¹ “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
~ Matthew 6:26-34

So we look forward to partnering with anyone that is out there, we are just getting started on this journey, will you come along for the adventure?

June 2019 Priorities—>

<—The Call