Adventure

So, the last couple of days I have been staying with a group of Christians who live about 2 hours north of Tokyo via the shinkansen (bullet train). I was in a small town of around 10,000 or less people.

The group of folks I stayed with have one purpose in life: get the gospel message out to the world. That is what their whole lives are devoted to. They see it as dying to themselves and doing what God wants them to do. They are basically a group of large, extended families, who the patriarchs (if you will) are men from the US who came there in the 50's after the war.

Their ministry -

Their whole ministry (at least in Japan) is getting the gospel message out the following 3 ways:
1. Handing out tracts on the streets or putting them in mailboxes
2. Putting up signs around the country. They have put up *hundreds of thousands* of tin signs all over Japan.
3. Driving around the whole country with vans that have speakers on top that continuously play spoken messages explaining the gospel. Some background is needed for this one. In Japanese society, it is common for folks to drive around in vans and giving out messages via loudspeakers. Mainly this is done by political groups. These folks get maps of areas and drive around and play the messages. They have been everywhere possible in Japan north of Tokyo and now they are also working in the south. They have a large fleet of vans with speakers on top, and support RVs that contain kitchens, showers, and bunks. I went out this morning for about a half an hour while they were testing out some new speakers and recordings. They drive slowly through the town and crank up the volume. We went by a kindergarten and some of the kids ran to the fence to listen and see the van. While I was with them, they even drove into a rice paddy and turned up the volume full blast so the farmers could hear for a half a mile all around.

Their property -

They have 5 or 6 main buildings. 2 or 3 are apartments or dorms. Very modest accomodations. 2 buildings are the school for the kids. 1 building is the meeting hall where meals are served for the older folks, guests, and others. The families cook their own meals. 1 building is a warehouse/garage.

Their economy -

The group runs a private kindergarten in another town, as well as other businesses, and funnels all the monies from those to spreading the gospel.

Their school -

The school for their kids teaches English for 2 hours, Japanese for 2 hours, and Chinese for 2 hours every day. Every kid becomes fluent in all 3 languages.

So, that's the basics of the mechanics of how things work there. I'll write more later about some of the people I met and some of the stories I heard.

--David