Trains and Temples

It's Saturday night about 8:30 PM. We spent a good bit of time today making arrangements for our travel next week to see EBM and ABWE missionaries. We bought Japan Rail passes before we left home from a travel agency in Chicago. The agency sent us vouchers, which we had to exchange for the passes here in Japan. As I wrote previously, travel costs are high here, so using a rail pass provides a more economical way to get around.

After we exchanged the vouchers for passes, the agent here helped us with all of the reservations we need for next week. We had four itineraries to piece together over 5 days, and it definitely gets complicated. So we were grateful for the help with making the reservations. Now the challenge will be to actually find the right trains and make all the connections at the right times. Please pray for us. It can be confusing.

We're still a little tired from the jet lag, and we seem to be filling up our days with plenty to do. But everything so far has been worth the joy of knowing that we are helping the missionaries and the overall effort to reach Japanese for Christ. The Enterlines told us yesterday that Japan seems to get so little attention from pastors and churches in the States, at least nothing like China and other places in Asia. Relatively few short-term mission trips are made by pastors and churches to Japan. Worse yet, the pool of missionaries actively serving in Japan has been steadily shrinking over the last 10 years--not just in relation to BMM, but also in relation to other boards as well. I believe that one of the most important things we can do to turn this around is for our church to lead in praying more faithfully for the Lord to work here in a powerful way to raise up more workers, to break people free from their supersitions and worship of idols, and to open the hearts of many to faith in the Lord Jesus. There are many examples in history of God hearing and answering the prayers of Christains to bring about the salvation of nations of people. Why not add Japan to that list!

Prayer is definitely needed. We did take some time today to stop off on the bus route long enough to see the local Bhuddist temple. The temple is more of a compound containing numerous shrines, pagodas, and other buildings. It breaks our hearts to see so many people going there to pray to a dead idol or to breathe in incense in the hope of receiving some benefit or to take part in some ritual or sacrifice. We saw all of this and more today. Perhaps the saddest of all was seeing parents of small children involving them in these various activities. Elliott remarked that it was so sad, it made him cry. I'm grateful for his tender heart. But to be honest, I'm not sure that he comprehends how steeped this culture is in such idolatry, supersitition, and paganism. Rick Enterline said that there are some Muslim nations that have greater percentages of Christians in them than Japan. How sad indeed. I'm not sure I comprehend the magnitude of it all either.