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“Those who hear the words of Jesus will live”

I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. (Jn 5:25)

We thank and praise God who blessed us to cross over from death to life through Jesus. We also thank all of you who have been supporting us with prayer and material help for Japan, where natural disasters are continuing such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Radiation leaking, flood,  and typhoon. We continue to pray for God’s mercy on Japan to be restored from natural disasters and broken hearts so that the gospel work may continue.

Each year, Japan UBF has three separate Summer Bible Conferences in three regions—West, East and Kyushu. East Japan had a Life Bible Conference (LBC) this year. On September 17-19, we held the conference with 80 attendees: 40 missionaries, 5 shepherds, 5 brothers and sisters and 30 CBF kids.

The opening message was delivered by John Kim, honorary director of Japan UBF, titled, “Those who hear will live,” based on John 5:24-25. We learned about the life-giving works for those who accept the words of God. In the evening, Ludia and Monica shared life testimonies. Ludia had been suffering to support her family until her husband got a job after his Ph.D. Her testimony was so bright and joyful because she deeply learned about God’s care and guidance during this time.

Monica’s testimony was also heart-moving. She began to study the Bible because of her son who brought her to UBF. Since then, her character has been changing a lot as a spiritual woman through faithful Sunday worship service and Bible study. In her testimony, she witnessed the power of prayer which solved her three ongoing problems. First, her debt problem was solved. Second, God provided her an affordable house from a Christian owner at a good price, after her three children became independent. She offered a thanksgiving offering out of her deep thankfulness to God. The greatest miracle was that her character has been changing. When she came to UBF, she used a lot of harsh words with complaints. However, her lips began to praise and give thanks to God. She confessed how Sunday weekly messages and one to one Bible study strengthened her soul. She made a decision to be a woman of prayer like Monica and to pray for her family to be Christians and to raise her three sons as spiritual leaders.  

Caleb Kim delivered the evening message, “Good Shepherd, Jesus.” Due to his frequent business trips abroad, he had to go to Australia during the conference. So we prayed for him every night at our prayer meeting to attend the conference fully. God heard our prayer that he could attend the conference serving the message. For the second day main message, Caleb Park from Chiba delivered a heart-moving message from Isaiah 53 and it touched many people to repent with tears. In the evening, there were several representative testimony sharers. Sone witnessed how Jesus helped her to overcome her inner fear so that she won the victory in her work. Once she tried to move near the UBF center downtown by accepting advice from her Bible teacher.  But her husband and parents opposed her decision. 

Rather than giving up, she prayed desperately to God and God helped her to receive loans from a bank to buy a house near the UBF center, and it pleased her parents and husband as well. She is going to study education to be an English teacher next semester. We pray for her to win the victory in her studies and grow as a campus shepherd. 

Liz Kim dreamed of a prince-like husband. In reality, however, after marrying by faith, she has been suffering to support her husband and children as a part time worker and house keeper. Moreover, due to the business failure of her husband and bankruptcy, she suffered for 6 years with deep despair. During this time, God had mercy on her to learn about Jesus who received greater suffering on the cross and was despised on behalf of her. It comforted her to overcome her 12 year fatalism. Now she is so thankful to God, even for the sunrise in the morning. We pray for her to learn the cross of Jesus and grow as a shepherd for campus students and have intercessory prayer like the prophet, Isaiah.

Before she met Jesus, Tanaka hated her parents who did not take care of her when she was young due to their businesses. She was mostly brought up by her grandparents and close relatives. She wanted to leave her parents after she grew up. It was why she lived near the center, apart from her parents. However, she met Jesus who died for her sin of hatred. It led her to repent and receive God’s forgiveness and finally she also could forgive her parents. We keep praying for her to grow as a woman of God who can serve and love those who need care with the shepherd heart of Jesus.

In the evening, we had praise night in which everyone sang hymns and praises. After that we prayed all together for world mission and Bible Japan.

On the third day, Naomi delivered the main message, “Receive love and love others,” (Jn 21). She dropped her two children off at her mother-in-law’s house in Korea in order to attend the conference, a six year old boy and three year old girl. It was not easy to do so because both of them could not speak Korean. She asked the first one to take care of the second one. Later, she was told that her first son took care of his younger sister as his mother asked. Through it, she began to understand Jesus’ heart who told Peter who was like a spiritual child to take care of Jesus’ sheep. Humanly speaking, it is nonsense that a child takes care of a child. However, it is the shepherd heart of Jesus. Jesus entrusted us his sheep even though we are spiritually young and weak. We often make many excuses how we are weak to take care of Jesus’ sheep. But it is our lack of faith, heart, and responsibility toward Jesus’ commands. We deeply repented and prayed to renew our hearts to take care of campus souls no matter what our condition is. 

The closing message was delivered by Abraham based on John 15:5 about remaining in Jesus. Personally, I had been struggling to prepare the conference due to my busy schedule at my teaching job and limited time to prepare the conference during the semester. I did not fully support the messengers as I planned before school started. What I could do was just pray in the early morning and attend united prayer meeting every night for three weeks. The day before the conference, I cried before God because of the poor preparation due to my weakness and lack of faith. At the conference, many coworkers seemed tired and in fact, there were many sicknesses. However, God heard our intercessory prayer for the conference. 

Jesus, who took our agony and weaknesses on the cross, healed our wounded souls and made us alive during the conference. It was like a miracle. Many of us said that this conference was one of the best conferences, filled with God’s grace and mercy. I thank God who had mercy on us and made us alive in his words through this conference. I thank Joseph Choi and Paul Chang who were in charge of all practical preparations. I also thank God for Ishihara who served CBF conference as well.

Overall, we thank Jesus who took our infirmities and transgressions on the cross in order to forgive us and heal us from our sins. We pray that we may stand firmly on this grace of Jesus. We may remember Jesus’ unchanging love no matter what our weaknesses are and serve students with the deep love of Christ continually.

Daniel Jeong, Toyko