Kofu Church, Japan

Pastor Lee ChangSup

The greatest joy of a missionary may be to see souls accept Jesus as their personal Savior and be baptized.  Luke 15:7 says there will be rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents, so there must be the same rejoicing on this earth.  According to my experience, Japanese people are harder to reach out to than Koreans, and the annual number of baptisms in Japan is way lower than that in Korea.  Maybe that’s why every soul is more precious and the joy of seeing one soul born again is greater here than in Korea.  But God has blessed me and Kofu Church so much that two souls were born again during a year and two months of my pioneer mission.  I would like to share the story of how these two souls were baptized and became the children of God.

Mrs. Morita Sigeko is a 47-year-old lady that became a daughter of God through PMM at Kofu in August 2005.  It was in January 2005 that I met her for the first time.  Living in the group home section of a mental hospital, she already trusted the pastor of the sister church of Kofu Church and showed great interest in the Bible.  I was appointed as a pastor of Kofu Church in March and started leading the Sabbath worship service the first week I was there.  She attended the evangelistic meeting in June and told me she wanted to be baptized because she was deeply touched by the speaker’s sermons.

The testimony that especially touched her heart was that of Mr. Mimura, a condemned criminal.  After listening to this testimony, she was encouraged by the fact that her miserable life could be changed by faith in Jesus.  In fact, she was a very competent lady in her twenties but suffered from depression because she had a hard time living in a foreign country after she got married.  Finally, she was separated from her husband and child, sent to a mental hospital and given medical treatment there for over 20 years.  Nevertheless, she was able to meet Jesus and have hope of life.  I just couldn’t help offering a prayer of thanksgiving to God as I saw her get baptized last August, start studying the Bible as a daughter of God and begin to keep the Sabbath.

The second soul born again was Hosaka Kazmasa.  He is so precious to me, and I am so thankful for him because it’s hard to find a young person in Kofu Church.  I met him for the first time at our church’s Vacation Bible School in August 2005.  While talking with Chaplain Kitaura Sahmyook Middle School during the pastor’s council, I asked him to give me the list of the middle school students of my area.  He faxed it to me, and one of the students was Kazmasa.  When I sent him a postcard asking for help with the summer Vacation Bible School when he returned home for vacation, he came to my church in August.  He was able to become acquainted with the church members as he came to church almost every week throughout his vacation.

Then, after he went back to school, I got a call from the chaplain of his school.  He said Kazmasa really wanted to be baptized in Kofu Church.  He promised me that he would prepare himself for baptism while he was in school and told me it would be good to baptize him in April the following year.  He enjoyed the fellowship with the church members during his vacation so much that he also wanted to be one of them.  This was really unexpected.

Kazmasa came back to Kofu after his graduation from middle school in April 2006, got baptized in the cold sea of Shizuoka with the warm greetings of many church members, and was born again as a son of God.  His non-Christian parents drove three hours to attend and congratulate him on his baptism, so we were able to have fellowship with them.  God allowed me to have the greatest joy through these two precious souls that He sent to Kofu Church.  I hope and pray that I may have more and more of this joy with my church members as I serve God here in Japan.

The baptismal service of Morita Sigeko

Hosaka Kazmasa after his baptismal service

Koufu church members