What motivates you to join God in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with those around you?

Maybe some of you will recite the Great Commission, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20), as the reason why you share Christ. Maybe some of you recall your days on earth before God called you to trust in Jesus, and you don’t want others to live in that lifestyle of futility, so that motivates you to reach out to the lost.

For myself, it was the summer of 2001 in southern China. I was on a short-term mission trip with some other Christians from Hawaii helping out a missionary family. A few of us were prayerwalking in the late afternoon at a university campus and I saw what I thought looked like paradise. It was 8 outdoor basketball courts side to side with students playing pick-up games or just shooting around.

I remember asking the Lord of the Harvest to send more workers to China to share the Gospel and pleading with God for these young people to stop believing the lies of atheism and false religions or relying on themselves for everything in life. And then I heard God’s voice asking me, “John, what about you?” And then my life had new purpose and motivation and the rest was history. Five years later, my wife and I moved to China with the call to share the Gospel of Christ with people who have never even heard the name of Jesus.

Our church has an opportunity this upcoming summer to go overseas to Japan for a short-term mission trip. We will be partnering with some churches and coming alongside our Japanese brothers and sisters in hopes of seeing God call more people to a personal relationship with Jesus.

We will be flexible in supporting these church-planting pastors as they use us in hopes of engaging more people in their communities with opportunities to hear about the Gospel. We will submit and yield to their leadership knowing that they love the Japanese people and know the ways of the culture and know how to open doors for the Gospel to be proclaimed. We will be sharing about our Hawaiian culture through luaus, music, having English conversations and seizing every opportunity to point people to Jesus Christ.

Would you consider joining our mission team in the summer of 2020? If God is able to use a 4th generation Chinese American male, who had no Chinese speaking skills and took Spanish in high school, to reach the lost in China for His glory, then surely he can use you this summer as we go to Japan. If you are interested and would like more information about our mission trip, please email me!