It's Thursday afternoon, almost 4 PM local time. Today has been a day of getting ourselves adjusted to the time change and organized for what comes next. We went to a nearby mall this morning to pick up a few things needed from the grocery store. Jusco, the mall's anchor store, is comparable to a Meijer's or Super Wal-Mart. While there, we also were able to pick up a LAN card for my computer. The LAN connector on the back of my computer must have a crack in it. It works fine when the computer first starts, but fails after it heats up. The new card was made in China and was not as expensive as I thought it might be, just under $24. It was a bit tricky to install, since the instructions were in Japanese. I tried using the installation CD (also in Japanese), but to no avail. Finally, Windows just took over and installed it all by itself.

We have been hearing from numerous others that Japanese youth (college students and younger) are the most open to the Gospel. One reason why perhaps is their love for all things Western--music, movies, clothing, and other artifacts of culture. On the way to the mall, we passed a "wedding chapel" located on the grounds of one of the nearby hotels. The building itself looks like it might be a small country church, complete with a three or four foot hight cross attached where you would expect to see a steeple. Many Japanese are so taken with Western culture that they simply must have a "Christian" wedding. Mind you they do not know anything about what's behind a truly Christian wedding; they just see it as a way of associating themselves with Western culture.

The openness of young people here is one reason why we are planning to initiate an English as a Foreign Language evangelism ministry utitlizing college students and recent college graduates. Using college students and recent grads will help us to connect with Japanese youth, while teaching English will offer the youth another way of associating with Western culture. On our last trip, we met a young man from Florida named Alex who had moved to Japan for one year to teach English in a commerically run school. Just before Alex left from home, someone shared the Gospel with him and he became a Christian. Alex told us that once he got here he decided to use his work to evangelize.

Hearing Alex's story is what turned on the light bulb for us. We've known of people teaching English in other hard-to-access countries with great success. It's being done, in fact, on quite a large scale--just not in Japan, not on a large scale anyway.

Japanese young people are open to the Gospel, at least much more so than older people. On our last visit, a young teenage girl named Azu prayed to receive the Lord as her Savior at the conclusion of my sermon. Azu had been invited by the pastor's daughter, who also had been sharing her own testimony with Azu and inviting her to church. The day Azu made her decision was just her second time in church. That's pretty amazing in a country where it can literally take several years for an older adult to make the decision. Please pray for Azu, that she might continue growing in her faith, and for the millions of others like her, that our church family might play a role in reaching them for Christ.

Many people have told me how difficult it is to win Japanese to the Lord. As true as it is, I believe there is a certain part of the Gospel message that Japanese might be especially suited to receive. I'll share more on this tomorrow.