Home visits are an important practice in the body of Christ! I am so glad to see that my home church here in Japan also practices home visits in order to minister to those who are either not able to make it to church or to those who are seeking extra pastoral care. Pastor Yasutaka allows me to join him to minister to Japanese in their private homes and it is always a blessing and a privilege to be able to participate! I’d like to talk about a Japanese couple I met during a home visit today: let’s call them B-San and C-san (real names and identities have been hidden).
For B-san and C-san, I ask that you would please pray fervently for them! For privacy reasons, I cannot go into details about what is specifically going on here, but there is a massive need for the Holy Spirit to come in and transform their lives. I pray that God would protect B-san in particular and give her the courage to forsake her old life and follow after Jesus whole-heartedly. It will not be an easy road, for as a Christian, we all are called to forsake our flesh and our old ways of thinking, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24-25). It’s not always easy, but from experience I can profess boldly that it is most certainly always worth it.
Sometimes, following Jesus can involve loss, and I’ve witnessed first hand how this can be especially true for the Japanese. You may lose your work and livelihood if it doesn’t align with the Word of God (for example: fortune tellers, prostitutes, pimps, gang members, etc.). You may lose your circle of friends if they participate in drugs/drinking/partying behaviors and you quit all of that after you got saved. You may also lose the support of your family (by forsaking the family religion and customs you were raised with) and be shunned by them. There are many, many things especially for Japanese people to consider before fully following God and it is for these reasons that I pray that faith would arise within them and that they would have the courage to make a stand and follow after God, no matter the cost.
Please pray for B-san and C-san, and continue to pray for me as well, that I would be able to minister effectively and help all Japanese people to be able to follow Jesus and experience the love of God like they have never known before.
Thank you always and God bless you!
Lifted Vision Ministry 