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A request for sharing the gospel to someone in Japan |
Dear Pastors of Tokyo Church,
My name is Ken. At present, I am writing to you from Canada (Vancouver, British Columbia). I came to know and accept Jesus Christ in 1996 and I am currently attending Alliance Church in Vancouver. I acknowledge about you through browsing the Tokyo Church website. Recently I encountered an issue and wondered if I could obtain some help from you.
My father used to work in Japan for a while more than 20 years ago and he came to know a Japanese named Makoto Sawatari. Mr. Sawatari was used to be my father’s co-worker, and they became friends even after my father moved back to my homeland (Hong Kong).
For the past 20 years my family and Mr. Sawatari have had communications a few times (once in a long while, even when my family has moved to Canada) and recently we went to visit him (Oct 10-18,09). Currently he was a senior at the age of 71. Originally he was married but his wife died of lung cancer about 3 years ago, leaving him and 2 cats behind (Mr. Sawatari and his wife had no children). That is, currently he is living alone with his two cats.
Through my family’s recent visit to him and my understanding of his current living condition, this motivated me to share the gospel with him formally and even have him connected with a church near to his home; nevertheless, I was not able to do so through my visit to him due to shortage of time as well as lack of good preparation (I only gave him a pamphlet which included a quotation of John 3:16, saying that "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." on my first night of my family's visit to him and he just thanked me without much response).
Here are some concerns that I have in regards to this matter:
(1) If I am not wrong, Mr. Sawatari’s belief is Buddhism. I figured this out since some of his family members were buried in a Buddhist cemetery. Also, through our visit to him he brought us to visit a few Buddhist temples (even though he did this mainly for our sightseeing purpose).
(2) I would definitely love to see Mr. Sawatari got connected to a gospel church, and most importantly as well as ultimately, accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour; however, I also see that this would be the biggest challenge which I am facing because as far as my acknowledgement, Mr. Sawatari does not have any Christian friends or he does not know anyone who is Christian; therefore, I do not know how a church can approach him smoothly and preach the gospel with him.
(3) As I mentioned before, Mr. Sawatari and my family are good friends and Mr. Sawatari’s family believes in Buddhism. I am concerned that if my recommendation of a church or my preaching of the gospel through a local church there to him would affect my family’s friendship with him (Currently I am the only Christian in my family; and no one in my family knows what I am doing at present).
In spite of all these challenges, I would strongly like to see Mr. Sawatari coming to accept Jesus Christ as his personal saviour as well as see him developing a relationship with God. Therefore, in addition to continuous prayer, I would like to present all these concerns that I have to you and I wonder if I could receive any help or advices from you in dealing with them.
Also, I would like to know if your church have either any outreach programs for preaching the gospel to others or someone available to visit others for Christ. In addition, as you and I have already known, Christmas is coming sooner and sooner and I think right now it’s a wonderful timing as well as opportunity to have someone to visit Mr. Sawatari for explaining to him about the birth of Christ and His salvation.
I hope that you can pray with me for this and I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you very much for your help.
In Christ,
Ken |
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▲TOP |
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〒162-0827 東京都新宿区若宮町24 東京教会
24 Wakamiya-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0827, Japan
Tel: 03-3260-8891 Fax: 03-3268-6130
(C) The Tokyo Korean Christian Church in Japan Ministries. All rights reserved.
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