Kofu Church, Japan

Pastor Lee ChangSup

 

The church members here are often grateful to me for devoting my time to the Japanese people as a missionary.  But whenever they say so, I say to myself, “I should be the one to be thankful.”  That’s because I have experienced so many blessings that I never enjoyed back in Korea.  One of them is to have fellowship with Japanese church members and work in cooperation with them.  It’s just amazing to be able to work with them as if we were brothers and sisters even though I’m living in a foreign land.

In the first week of June, eight colporteurs from the Japan Union Conference came to Kofu Church, visited from door to door and spread the gospel.  I went with different groups of them every day because I had really wanted to go door to door in Japan.  This was such a good chance to learn about it.  I accompanied Mr. Ikeda, the Assistant Director of the JUC colporteur ministry, on the first day.  I followed him, carefully observing what he was doing at first.  But then he suddenly told me to give it a try.  I thought the time had come at last and rang the doorbell.  Somebody opened the front door and came out.  He smiled as I tried hard to explain with my poor Japanese the reason I came here.  He was probably just curious to hear me explain something earnestly with elementary Japanese.

After four days of door-to-door visits, I began to gain confidence.  I was also able to make friends with the Japanese colporteurs after working with different partners every day.  Above all, I was happy to experience their passion for souls and eager love for God.  The ten of us visited around 2,700 places, distributed 1,500 evangelistic pamphlets and delivered Christian books for four days.  There were many times when there was nobody at home or people refused to see us, but we all worked hard, believing that God would show us the result of the seeds sown.

When I got back from the morning visit on the fourth day, my wife was so excited to share some news with me.  A lady named Ms. Hukajawa called her in the morning and said she would come to our church with her children that week.  My wife assumed this lady must have gone to church before because she said she had a Bible in her parents’ house.  We were all overjoyed and wondered who visited her.  I had such high expectations.  I was curious about how she made up her mind to go to church.

The Sabbath day came at last.  A lady with a child entered the front door of the church at 9:30 a.m.  Her first impression was good, and she showed interest in the church programs.  When Sabbath school was over, I couldn’t help asking her how she decided to come to church.  She said that the Kofu Church brochure that she got from the two members that visited her on Thursday morning touched her heart and led her to call me at once.  She had gone to church in England and tried going to church when she came back to Japan, but she wasn’t brave enough to do so.  However, she decided to accept this invitation as she was considering her child’s education.  And she said, “I should be brave enough to come to church.”  That made me think about a lot of things.

I preached a sermon to the colporteurs on the parable of the sower last Thursday morning.  Mr. Waga, who had given the evangelistic pamphlet to Ms. Hukajawa, distributed postcards of Millet’s “The Sower” printed on them.  He purchased them from a nearby art gallery after remembering the sermon that morning, and he encouraged all of us to work together with this spirit.  It was such a precious experience because I realized the seeds sown would never be in vain.  The true result of the seeds sown will be known when I get to heaven.1.JPG

Hukajawa who came to Koufu Church thanks to its brochure by a colporteur (the lady with glasses: the second from the right in the front row)