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By God’s grace I visited Japan from Dec. 27, 2011 to Jan. 3, 2012. When Daniel Jeong came to Chicago to attend the Founders Day, he asked me to come during the annual Directors Conference and give a lecture on the UBF history of pioneering USA. This was not only a challenge, but also the opportunity to review three books on the topic, including the book “My grace is sufficient for you.” The Directors Conference was held at GiFu city in Japan from Dec. 29 - 31. Paul Kwon was the chapter director and hosted the conference. He welcomed and served all the chapter directors with the love of Christ.

The conference theme was “Explore the land.” I gave my lecture on the first evening. David Park from Kwang Ju III gave the main lecture on Friday. He delivered it with great passion and zeal, encouraging all the directors to explore the land with the same spirit as Joshua and Caleb. The coworkers in Tokyo welcomed me and treated me like a prince. Before and after the conference I stayed at the center guest house and had the privilege to visit house churches and had wonderful fellowship. I visited Daniel & Maria Jeong, Joshua & Grace Lee, John & Sarah Kim and Ezra & Esther Kim. In between I also had wonderful fellowship with our coworkers at the center. When I visited Japan I had one question in my heart: Why Christianity has difficulty in taking a root in Japan? In 2008 Ezra and Esther had the same question and published a book on this subject. Ezra was glad to give a copy to me. Japan had embraced Shinto and Buddhism, but revealed an allergic response to Christianity as if it were her enemy due to largely misunderstanding in their perception. It was mainly because of several leaders such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi who instigated hatred against Christianity for their political ambition. Our coworkers have kept the lamp of God and prayed for Japanese students with the love of God. Someday God may open their spiritual eyes and heal their allergic response to Christianity. Currently, most of chapters have one house church. For example, Chiba chapter has one house church Caleb & Pauline Park. It takes 2 – 3 hours for Caleb Park to go to work. Yet he rented a center in Chiba to make an environment for the students at the Chiba State university and prays for them. In the same way most of the chapter directors have kept their faith like the soldiers at the front line. It is a great relief that there are more coworkers in Tokyo chapter, who play a role of mother for other chapters scattered throughout Japan. God may use the director Daniel Jeong and former director John Kim continually for his redemptive work in Japan.

Reported by Dr. Charles Kim