Glory to God! New Year’s Day in Japan is one of the two spiritually darkest nationally observed holidays in Japan, as the majority of the Japanese population gather in the Shinto shrines to give what many consider to be a culturally obligatory and socially mandatory “first prayer” or hatsumode to idols that most of them do not even believe in. Many Christians in Japan face battles on this day, with heavy pressures from lost family members and work colleagues, and for all of these reasons, we decided to hold our own New Year’s Day Worship Service every year at our church to begin the year worshipping our true God! Last year, only my wife and I were present, but this year, we rejoice that we packed out our church office with 13 people, who truly stood up for God, giving praises to our true living God when the rest of the nation were bowing their knees to dead idols! What a fantastic start it was to 2025!
Our church theme last year was “I (Jesus) Will Build My Church,” taken from Matthew 16:18, and we rejoice that He clearly began doing exactly that in 2024! This year, we have decided our theme and focus for this new church that Christ has built will be “Rooted and Built Up in Him (Christ),” taken from Colossians 2:7. Generally, there are two types of people who initially gather in a church plant started from zero in a place that previously had none: one being the lost who first heard of Christ through the church plant, and the other being the saved who were searching and praying for a solid church to be planted in their city, neither of which were “rooted” anywhere and growing before being led to that church plant. The congregation gathered in our church plant is also a mix of these two backgrounds, and our focus and prayer this year is to help these precious souls now become grounded in His Word and be used of Him through our church plant as we continue to reach the lost. We immediately launched two opportunities this month for our regulars who are already saved and baptized in our church: “Volunteers for Jesus” to open various opportunities to serve in some way and a church membership class for those praying about making our church plant their official church home. We rejoice that 5 of our faithful adults have signed up for both opportunities this month! Immediately, one of them donated a screen to use in our main bilingual worship service for him to also work the slides, which allowed us to implement a Bible verse memory time in our service, as well as provide lyric guides during our congregational singing so that those who wish to sing in both languages do not have to juggle two songbooks (and there are many gathered who truly don’t want to miss out on anything)! Others are preparing to serve in other ways that will allow our church plant to do more than just what my wife and I can handle. Especially in the areas of service, personal Bible reading, and memorizing of Scripture, our church has seen evident spiritual growth this month. We praise God for His work in the lives of people!
Our outreach and visitation are also off to a great start. We were able to have our first family in our home for a meal this year on New Year’s Day, with a saved Japanese couple who attend our church faithfully and their two college-aged children, one who is out of church and the other who is not saved. On January 18, we had a good visit with the lost father of the two children who trusted Christ last month during our Christmas outreaches. Please pray for God to work in the hearts of all of these people. As an additional blessing, a church in Mexico and a church in England have taken our family on for support of their own initiative, growing our financial capacity to do even more for our ministry here. To them and many more, thank you for your part in all that God is doing in Japan!
Danielle’s Journey
We had such a great start this year, as we packed out the office auditorium space for the New Year’s Service. After the service, we were able to invite one of the families over for lunch and fellowship, including their college-aged son and daughter whom we have not gotten to know very well yet. The fellowship time was so sweet and encouraging, and we pray that we will have more opportunities like this! Another time of encouragement was when we got to visit the Carter family and their ministry in Tokyo this month. It was so exciting to sit and learn how God has blessed their ministry, especially to hear new ideas for events they have used to reach children. We are still praying for God to start our children’s ministry. Though the two children who got saved last month have yet to return, we were able to visit their father, as well as meet one of their other sisters this month. Please pray that this entire family would get saved. This month, we have also had two of the ladies in our church say they’d like to help with providing the church meals! It is so exciting to see God put a desire to serve in their hearts, and it is such a help to me personally. I am looking forward to seeing how God will use and grow them through serving, as well as tasting their delicious dishes! Thank you so much for keeping us in your prayers and taking the time to read our praise reports to see how God is working here in Japan!
Your friends and co-laborers to Japan,
Go and Danielle Oishi
