Kawasaki Church, Japan

Pastor Lee JinHwan

 

There was a meeting in my church last year regarding which program to run for future evangelism.  A suggestion was made to open a baking class since everybody knew that one of our church members, Sako, was really good at baking.  But there was no microwave or gas oven range at church.  I concluded that a microwave oven with two bread pans was needed and did some market research on it.  However, they were too expensive for the church to purchase.  The financial burden made it a waste of time.

Some time passed, and it was time to distribute pamphlets for recruiting Korean language students.  There is no place to hang a banner or put up a poster in Japan, so I had to put pamphlets in the mailbox of each house.  I decided to do so at different times and in places so that I could observe people’s responses in a more systematic way.  I divided the time slots into dawn, morning, afternoon and evening and the places into apartment complexes, private residences, housing lots for the middle class and housing lots for the rich.  This helped me figure out the best times to visit different neighborhoods.

To begin with, I decided to go around the mansions of the rich at dawn and left home at three in the morning.  I drove to my destination and began delivering pamphlets to several mansions.  I did it quietly, in the still, dark street, so as not to disturb the sound sleep of its residents.  Then I saw a place for garbage in front of one mansion.  Most of the houses had white plastic bags in front of them, but I saw some pieces of furniture and home appliances here.  Since I had recycled some secondhand home appliances in Chiba two years before, I could tell that these things were in good enough condition to look through.  I checked them out carefully, thinking that this could be some type of windfall.  Then I found a microwave oven among them.  It immediately reminded me of the baking class.  I thought to myself, “Isn’t it good enough to be used in the baking class?  Wouldn’t it be good, since it’s so much bigger than the one my church is using now?”  Because I wasn’t able to examine its condition fully in the dark, I said to myself, “Let me take it to the church first.  Then I can check it out.”  So I stopped delivering pamphlets and went back to the church with the microwave oven.  I plugged it in without hesitation and turned it on.  It started working.  There were two bread pans in it.  All the utensils needed for it were also there, including a pair of tongs to take out the pans.  It was a TOSHIBA microwave oven produced in January 1991.  So I took off the garbage sticker, stuck it on the one I was using and put my old one it back where I had found the TOSHIBA.

That’s how I spent my dawn hours that day.  I showed the microwave oven to my wife and asked for her opinion of it.  She said that its condition seemed better than the ones displayed in secondhand stores, even though it had been around for more than 10 years, and that it would be no problem to run the baking class with it.  So we polished it inside and out.  It was indeed a good one after all the dust and stains were gone.  Its various functions were working properly.  So after consulting with Sako, we started the baking class.

God helped my church in a very special way.  The garbage is normally taken away at eight in the morning.  It would have been impossible for me to find that microwave oven if I had not been there at dawn.  Besides, such a fine microwave oven would not have been thrown away if the residents had not been well off.  I praised God for letting me deliver pamphlets at that time of day, and at the time of the month when secondhand goods were collected.

The oven is working so well nowadays that my church can’t do without it.  It’s perfect for our potluck every Sabbath, as well as for the baking class.  It is my prayer that through this class, which started with God’s special blessing, seekers after truth may come to the Lord.1,교회2차침례식.jpg

The baptismal service in the Yokoska Beach of Tokyo Gulf