For those of you who don’t know, Lighthouse just sent off a short-term Missions Team to Japan! Since the beginning, Lighthouse has been focusing on Japan as one of its target countries (in terms of evangelism), and we have finally sent our first team. Daichi, Joy, Zach, Mark, Christina (and kids) will be partnering with Christ Bible Institute in Nagoya, spending time with the teams there, and teaching musical worship seminars. Team Member/Summer Intern Zach will be sending daily updates so keep checking back!
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Church
We visited 2 churches in Nagoya: Grace Hill Church & All Nations Fellowship (ANF)
9:45AM – Got on the train to go to the Grace Hill Church.
10:30AM – Service at Grace Hill started.
11:30AM – Had lunch with Grace Hill family. Much fellowship.
4:00PM – Went ANF at CBI.
6:00PM – Had dinner with Kawai family and a couple friends we met.
7:30PM – Hung out with Daichi’s cousin.
10:00PM – Got back to the hotel. Went to sleep.
On the train ride over to Grace Hill, I counted the people who were on the train with us. There were 48 people in our car. In America, it wouldn’t have been surprising if all of them had gone to a church service at least once in their life. But in Japan, it would be surprising if ANY of them had ever gone to a church service. It was an incredibly sad thought. As we got off, I prayed that God would make it so that someday, we could get into a train car in Japan that was full of Christians.
At Grace Hill, there are 3 families, a Japanese lady, and missionary that come out regularly. The Lighthouse team doubled the amount of people there. Also, a lady we had met on our trip came also. Grace Hill Church meets at Damon’s apartment. So it was pretty crowded. Toshi did the call to worship and lead us in a few songs with a lady named Yukako. Damon spoke on the authority of Christ through Genesis 1-3. Hide translated into Japanese. (I’ll write on a separate post to detail the service and fellowship later.)
All Nations Fellowship is a more established church. I didn’t count how many people came, but there were significantly more. Unlike Grace Hill, ANF is western by nature and translated into Japanese. (The significance of that will be talked about in the Grace Hill post.) Brooks Cain and his wife led worship. Paul Kang spoke. Yu-san translated into Japanese.
You should ask Daichi & Joy about their extended families. Their heart for Japan stems from their love for their families.
