After a full five weeks in the States, I am finally back in Japan. Thank you for your prayers both for me during my time traveling and for Kumi and the kids while they continued life in Tokyo.
The trip started earlier than planned when I got word that my father was close to going home to be with the Lord. I caught the first flight I could to Kansas. My siblings were also there, and the Lord gave our whole family such a beautiful time together during my dad's final days. Right up until the end, he was praying for each of his kids and grandkids, blessing us, telling us he loved us. At his funeral, my brother played a recording of a message my dad preached from his bed just days before he passed. Yes, he literally preached at his own funeral.
The Lord has such a beautiful way of orchestrating the events of our lives. Other than one speaking engagement I canceled, I was able to keep every other scheduled engagement. I ministered in several churches and other groups, and we held four Vision Gatherings across the country. Each one felt like a divine appointment. In Nashville, Kumi called in live from Center Street near Shibuya Scramble during our Gathering, and we prayed and declared together God's plan for Tokyo and Japan. There was a momentum and release in the spirit that I felt deeply.
But beyond this, what I didn’t expect was how the Lord seemed to bring so many things in my life full circle. During the course of my travels, I connected with almost every person who was significant in launching me to Japan twenty-five years ago.
I remember when I was just getting ready to move to Japan 25 years ago. A few weeks before I was flying out, I attended a meeting at a church in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and the guest speaker who was preaching, a very prophetic man, suddenly stopped in the middle of his message, pointed at me from the pulpit and said, "God's called you to Japan. You are going to stand like Elijah and tell people, 'If the Lord is God, serve him!’” He prophesied some other things about my life, and then continued on with his message. At the end of the service, the pastor of the church stood up and announced they would take a special offering for me to go to Japan, and that they would double whatever amount came in out of the church’s general fund. That offering basically funded my first year in Japan.
Last month, by happy coincidence I ran into that same pastor, whom I hadn’t seen since that meeting in 2000. As we spoke, he said to me suddenly, “You know, God used your dad in one of the most marking miracles of my life.” He then related a story of how, when he was young and first pioneering a church back in the 80’s, my dad invited him to speak to the youth at his church, and afteward thanked him, and handed him a folded check. This pastor was believing God for finances. “I didn’t even look at the check for a couple days because I didn’t think it would be anything. There were only 5 or 6 young people in the group,” he continued. “But when I opened it, it was a check for $1000.” It was a miracle of provision that this pastor never forgot.
Driving home that night from Mt. Pleasant after the meeting, my dad, who had gone with me to the meeting, suddenly started weeping. I asked him what was happening and he started sharing. “When I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and the Lord gave me my prayer language, the first several weeks I prayed in this distinct, staccato language. I always thought it sounded Japanese.” This was a story I had heard from my dad before. But then he continued. “I had never asked the Lord, why it was like that, until tonight. I just asked Him and He said to me, 'You were praying for your son in Japan.'"
We live in fruit of the seeds that were sown by those who have gone before us. The prayers they prayed, the gifts they gave, those words and actions ripple out in the generations that follow. Isn’t it amazing how God weaves our lives together. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of that beautiful tapestry. I felt like I had one on this trip.
It's with this heart that we labor in Tokyo. We're sowing for future generations, establishing a place of encounter with God, a dwelling place for the Lord, in the heart of Shibuya. We will open a prayer room in September—a space where people can meet the God who has been orchestrating their stories long before they knew it, before they were even born.
In this season we are asking God for:
- A team on the ground with us here in Tokyo
- Favor and provision for the Shibuya prayer room launch
- Divine appointments as we share the gospel
Thank you for standing with us in this beautiful, unfolding story.
-J