Called to Japan

Father in Heaven, we are gathered together this afternoon so that we might understand a little of thy workings in the land of Japan. We also recognize, too, Father, that there are people here, there are those that are looking to thee for direction, and it is good sometimes for us to understand how God has directed others. And we pray that there might be encouragement, even for those that are looking to thee, that thou dost really answer prayer, and thou dost really intervene in our lives.

And we know, Father, thou art very concerned with how our lives would turn out and what we're meant to do. And we pray that this report might be accurate and honest before thee. And we pray, Father, that we might be edified by it, and we recognize that we are so easily distracted into our way of thinking.

We pray that we might think the thoughts of Heaven for an hour, and that we might be able to see things as thou dost see them. We pray now for help, for guidance, for both the speaker and for the audience to listen. In the name of the Lord Jesus, amen.

Now I'm fighting against a very delicious dinner that you've all taken far too much of, and because I thought if I can't lick you I'm going to join you, I went back for seconds myself. I appreciate very much, you put on a great spread, it was wonderful, wonderful indeed. So thank you very much for all your efforts and work, and we will do our best to put as much effort into preaching as you do into making a delicious meal, so that means I have my work cut out for me.

I'd like to first of all read from the book of Exodus, and then from the book of the Acts. Exodus please, in chapter 4. I have been asked the question, and it dovetailed with what my exercise was, the question was why Japan? Like, why did you go there? I want to answer that question in the first part of the meeting. Exodus chapter 4 and verse 10.

And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth, or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will bewit by mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. Look at those three words, please, at the beginning of verse 12.

Now therefore go. Over to the book of the Acts in chapter 16. Acts 16 and verse 10.

And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Chapter 18 please, and verse 10. Well verse 9 as well.

Chapter 18 verse 9 of the book of the Acts. Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace. For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in this city.

May God bless to us the reading of his words. You'll find out why I've read it in a few moments. I was saved as a boy almost nine years old.

It was so remarkably clear, it came to me, there was nothing I could do about my sin. Christ had done it all. There God rests, there I rested.

I was saved. As I sometimes say, the moment I was saved, I fell asleep. I never knew I was saved until the next morning.

You say, what kind of a story is that? Well it's true. I didn't know I was saved until the next morning. You see, I had struggled and struggled in my sin, that the moment I was incredibly relieved that Christ had died for my sins, I just fell right to sleep.

I had had a lot of nightmares up before that, nightmares about all sorts of silly things. But you know, all those went away from that night onwards. And was I ever relieved? Literally relieved.

I know salvation is not a feeling. That's not salvation, but I'll tell you something. I knew I was saved.

Christ had died for my sins. Well, I marched into my mother the next morning and I said, Mom, I got saved last night. I'm going to train to be a medical doctor and I'm going to Africa as a missionary.

She looked at her eight and three quarter year old son and said, Well son, if God calls you, that would be good. If God calls you, that would be good. That was a good thing to say, actually.

I admire her for saying that. Those words burned into my mind and I can't remember a moment from that time onwards when I didn't, I'm not going to say assume, but I am going to say desire, that I wanted to be a missionary. Now it so happened I did not train in medicine, and it so happened I am not in Africa, I'm on the other side of the world, but those were the boyish details, those are gone.

Instead God had his own plans in his own mind. But if God calls you, that would be good. So what did I do? I did what every other boy wants to do when you're training to be a missionary.

How do you train to be a missionary? Well, I used to sit in the sun for long periods of time with my tie on. I thought that was a good way to train to be a missionary. Africa is hot, and missionaries wear ties.

At least I thought they did. We can smile at that and everything, but I think it just showed you that inside me was born a desire to be whatever this was, missionary or whatever, all this exoticness of it. I never thought really about what it meant.

I just felt that's what I wanted to be. So that it was no mistake that when I met the woman who later became my wife, on the very first time I met her I said, would you go out for dinner with me? On my very first dinner, which was three days later, I said, how did you get saved? Are you baptized? Why are you in the assembly? What do you see as the woman's role in the assembly? And this and that, and I went up and down every doctrine I could possibly think of. Which, by the way, is not a bad idea if you think you're falling in love with someone, is to quickly clear all the doctrines.

Make sure she believes what you believe. Well, she was thinking, if I ever get away from this fellow, he's history. And then I told her, I really feel God wants me to be a missionary or preach the gospel for the rest of my life.

Would you share a similar exercise? Absolutely not, she said. Go find somebody else. Well, a few weeks later I wrote her and asked her if she'd be my wife.

I was absolutely convinced that this was the person that I couldn't live without. And so, she was not absolutely convinced of that. And it took some convincing over the months to follow.

Which, again, I think is very wise as a woman to don't say yes to a fellow you only met three weeks previous. I couldn't understand why she didn't want to be a missionary. But she knew why.

She noticed what happened to missionaries' wives. You ever notice what happens to missionaries' wives? Half of them get sick and the other half die. And she said, no thank you, that's not what I'm cut out for.

She looked at my grandmother and she died. They were missionaries to Venezuela and she died, 59 years old. She looked at her grandmother, who got tuberculosis in Venezuela as well, and came home and spent the last 50 years of her life in very poor health with half a lung and so on.

So she said, no thank you. People that go to the mission field get sick. Period.

Well, I didn't quite see it that way, but men don't often see it that way. So what am I going to do? Actually, I went back and I told my mom. I said, I've met this woman that I really think that she's amazing.

You know the way men talk, right? Or boys talk. Ah, she's wonderful and all this, but I can't understand. She doesn't share the same exercise.

Oh, my mom said, if he calls you, he'll call her too. Oh, well then, now I can get married. Because if he calls me, he'll call her too.

And so, we eventually got married about a year and a half later, once we were both convinced that this was the will of God. But all my time burning in my mind is, am I called? Am I called? Is this what I'm meant to do? You know what happened shortly after we were married? Ruth got sick. And she was sick for five years.

As she began radically changing her prayer, Lord, I'm in the homeland and I'm sick. I didn't have to go to the mission field to get sick. I got sick right here at home.

If you give me back my health, I'll go. If you give me back my health, I'll go. But she never told me.

Because you see, I had agreed that I would never bring up the subject again. And she never brought it up to me, but she's changing. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there at home and going, well, see, I had to give up my career.

I had to stop everything. And as far as I could see, life as I knew it came to a full stop. And instead of now in the university, I was delivering mail door-to-door in the slums of Vancouver.

You can understand what a radical adjustment that was to my character. Instead of really thinking I was somebody, I used to sneak out to work in the morning in my posty uniform, right? And thinking, well, I hope none of my friends see me. And when they saw me, they would say things like this.

They'd gone off to get their master's degree. And they'd meet me on the bus in downtown Vancouver. And they'd go, what are you dressed like that for? Well, I loved my job.

And it was good for me to learn a lot of things that I would not have learned in the university classroom. And God was working with me. I call it character assassination.

Smashing me. I sometimes say, if you think I'm bad now, you should have seen me then, right? God had to deal with me and pound out a lot of things. And God was dealing with Ruth.

And as we watched our friends get married and buy their little white houses with a white picket fence and buy their two cars and their 3.3 children or whatever the average was, and they'd have all these things, right? We're stuck. We don't have children. We don't have a career.

We don't have anything. And we don't understand what's wrong in life. Has God forgotten us? And burning in my mind is, am I called? Am I called? That's why I'm praying.

She's praying, Lord, give me back my health, I'll go. But we're not talking to each other about this issue because we've agreed we're not talking about it. Then Mr. Bentley from Malaysia drops by.

He's flying from Malaysia to go to the Toronto Easter Conference. He stops in Vancouver where we were. And he takes part that Sunday morning after the breaking of bread.

And he ministers from the book of Isaiah. He was actually sick. He probably never thought that there was going to be eternal consequences from the message he was about to give.

He never even prayed that morning. He was sick. He was all full of a head cold and a fever.

And he stands up and he reads this little passage and he goes through them. I only heard the first verse he read. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness.

I never heard another word. Right then I knew I was called of God. The four or five years of praying about that one issue had been answered.

You say, just from a verse? Absolutely. How'd you get saved, brother? How'd you get saved, sister? Well, one day I just realized I'd read it many times before. I'd read Romans 5 and 6 many times before.

And one day I realized Christ died for the unborn. Oh, that's me. Well, that's what happened to me.

I the Lord have called thee in righteousness. And there I was, called. Now I have a problem.

How am I going to tell my wife? I get home. Well, we were at the meeting together. We get home that night and it's about midnight.

And finally I could put it off no longer and I said, listen, I have something to tell you. She says, actually I've got something to tell you too, but you go first. It's always nice when a woman says that, right? You first.

So I told her just what I told you. She says, do you not remember his second point? I said, no. I wasn't listening.

She says, the second half of the same verse. I said, what is it? So I looked up Isaiah 42 and 6. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand and will keep thee. She says, as soon as I heard the words, and will keep thee, she says, I knew God would keep me on the mission field.

I said, I'll go. I look at my wife. She looks at me.

We had been sitting side by side in the meeting 12 hours earlier and did not know that both of us had got a call from God through the same verse. I from the first half, she from the second half, and there we were. Well, God's called us.

We were amazed. Nothing was going right in life, but God had spoken to us so loudly. Next morning I wake up.

Ah, that's too easy. I mean, how can that be possible? So I get down on my knees and I thought, well, I'm going to ask the Lord for something from the Vancouver Easter Conference to confirm the word. So I get down on my knees, and running through my mind was a verse I didn't know I knew.

Obviously, I picked it up somewhere. Obviously, I'd memorized it somewhere. The last verse of the book of Mark.

What is it? And the Lord working with them, confirming the word, with signs following. I just said, Amen. And stood up.

You ever pray a prayer without saying a word? Now that's praying. Because then God's doing the talking too. Confirming the word with signs following.

That was enough. He confirmed the word right there. Now I'll just look and see what God's going to do.

I can't remember anything at that conference, actually. No doubt it was edifying, but I can't remember. I had a word from God already.

Well, I had to tell somebody. After all, what good is trusting God if you don't go out on a limb and tell somebody about it? So that's what we decided we did. We prayed to a person that wasn't one of our elders, and he wasn't a brother in the Lord's work, so to speak, because we didn't want to do any cheating by getting someone to take us out with them or something.

Let God do the work. So the only man that fell into the category of being in the Lord's work without being in the Lord's work and being an elder without being one of our elders, and that was a man called Sandy Higgins. So we sat down and we wrote Sandy Higgins a letter.

And he writes another letter back almost immediately. Great to hear this. Great to know that God's working in your life.

Now, you pray as to where. Well, that took us aback. Where? We hadn't got that far yet.

Where? God did confirm his word with signs following, which I won't go into now, but I'll tell you, when there was a... after a gospel meeting, there was a young fellow that sat about this seat here, maybe here, or somewhere down in the front of me, went over to that person's house afterwards, and he met me at the top of the stairs, and he says this to me, I got saved in a meeting tonight when you were speaking on such and such a verse. Immediately coming into my mind, confirming the word with signs following. If God's going to use me somewhere else, he has to use me right at home first.

Well, now, God was pleased to give us souls when preaching the gospel. That was tremendous. We didn't really understand why, but then it would appear to us that God wanted me to now go back to school.

After working as a post-D for five years, going back to university is quite a change of gears again. Everything I thought I knew, I had now unlearned or forgotten, and I head back into university at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Why? Well, that's where we got sick the first time, she says.

We've got to prove God in the homeland first before we can go anywhere else. Right. But I said, I can't go there.

I can't get reference letters. I can't do it. I just can't do it.

So we laid it out before the Lord that we're going to walk into the university, and those reference letters are going to have to be dealt with in some way. I walk into the economics department right into the graduate secretary's office. She looks up, having not seen me for five years, and goes, Elton.

Well, that takes me by surprise. She goes, I happen to have your file sitting right here on the desk. Now, that took me by surprise.

And I said, what would it take to come back? Desperately hoping that it would be impossible because I don't really want to go back, but part of me feels we should. She says, well, let's see. You'll have to make your application again, right? You'll have to pay all the fees again.

Well, of course. And as you go through, she goes, oh, all the reference letters are here, she says, so you don't need to do anything about reference letters. Oh, dear.

Now we're going back to school. Then they canceled the program. They canceled the master's degree program, which we were to go into.

So I phoned them up and said, you've canceled the program, but I think I'm meant to go back. Can I go into the PhD instead? Well, no. Don't usually do that, et cetera, et cetera.

So in my own unassuming, trying-to-be-convincing way, we eventually said, please, just change the application. Well, they let us in. Anyways, God just kept opening the doors.

And where did we come in? Right at the bottom of the class, of course. And every time they dismissed students, we were always just, just enough. Just enough.

It's a very humbling experience to always be the worst. But one gets used to it after a while. And so God was working with us there.

That was 1996. Just before we went to the university, we attended the Vancouver Easter Conference. You might think that all we ever do is go to conferences.

Well, it seems to be where God speaks, by the way. So if I could just say something. Go to every conference you can.

Drive the miles. Stay overnight. Do what you have to do to go to as many conferences as possible.

Because that's where you're putting yourself in the way of God's blessing. So, there we were. Vancouver Easter Conference.

Ruth, by this point, is starting to get better. Amazing, is it not? We've yielded now. God has called.

And now Ruth's starting to get better. But she just wasn't able to do a full day of conference. So she was at home reading the book of the Acts.

And praying, Lord, where are you going to send us? Where are we going to go? I was off at the Bible reading in the morning. And then we joined together for the ministry in the afternoon. And then we come to the night meeting.

It's a missionary meeting. Mr. Jim Curry of Japan is speaking. She had read Acts 16, verse 10.

Assuredly gathering that the Lord would have us preach the gospel unto them. And she thought, assuredly gathering. Maybe God is going to tell us where we ought to go to preach the gospel.

Meanwhile, I'm off somewhere in the heavenlies. I'm not even paying any attention about that. I'm off at the Bible reading, listening to the men tell us what the passages mean.

But she's alone with God. I hope our sisters have enough time to be alone with God. But you know, there's a catch to that.

Because do you know how the sister gets time alone with God? The husband has to look after the children. Right? You can't turn to your wife and say, you're not working hard enough, you should also spend an hour alone with God every day. You have to give her that hour.

Anyway, I was giving her the hour by getting out of the house and going to the conference. So, there she was, alone with God. Mr. Currie gets up and he reads Acts chapter 10 and verse 16.

Assuredly gathering that the Lord would have us preach the gospel unto them. And he says, I don't know my audience. There must have been anywhere between seven to nine hundred people.

That's what I could see in that auditorium. I don't know my audience, but it could be there's a young couple in this audience. And you've been called by God to serve Him.

And you're wondering as to where you ought to go. And I'd like to tell you about Japan. And Ruth is listening.

And I'm going, I wonder, who's going to get the call? You often wonder. And I spent most of the meeting looking over my shoulder thinking, yep, that describes that brother there. And Ruth is listening.

Lord, are we going to Japan? I already made up my mind I'm not going. There's three reasons why I can't go. Number one, they're all too smart there.

Number two, the work is so well developed that there's nothing much left to do, right? The assemblies are planted and that. So they don't need me. I want to be a pioneer.

I want to go to Russia. Or Mexico. I told Ruth I wanted to go to Russia.

She says, you're going alone. So that was the end of that. So we have here too smart, too well developed, and the third thing, I can't learn the language.

I was right, you know, on the first. They are too smart. I was wrong on the second.

They are not well developed. Less than 1% of the country claims to be nominal Christian. That means out of 126, 127 million people, 125 million of them are Buddhist or Shintoist.

And that 1% left, that includes Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Protestants, you name it, whatever. Right? Well developed? I was wrong. But I was right on number three.

It's an impossible language. I can't learn it, Lord. Therefore, I cannot go.

Ruth turns to me at the end of that meeting with deep conviction of heart. And she says, I think God wants us to go to Japan. And I, with equal conviction of heart, turned to her and said, I think not.

I can't go. Maybe I'm a bit stubborn, pig-headed, whatever you want to call it. I just wasn't listening, was I? It seems so obvious to you now, when you're listening, through the way I'm telling it, it seems so obvious, I wasn't listening.

That was 1996. 1998, I get an email from Sandy Higgins. Now remember, I haven't had any contact with him for a year and a half or so.

Out of the blue, he emails me and he says, I've just been to Japan. Really interesting country there. Lots of foreigners, you know, etc., by the way he talks.

And he says, there's a good work going on there. Mr. Currie has labored well. The assemblies are established in various areas and such.

And there's a good work among the publishing work that Mr. Currie has, etc. And his last line was, I may be way off theme in all of this, but I think you and Ruth ought to pray about going to Japan. This is a serious problem.

Because I don't want to go. Or everything seems to be lining up that we're meant to go. So we start praying about it.

You see, before that, I stopped praying about Japan. Because when you've made up your mind you're not going to do something, the last thing you want to do is pray about it. Well, I stopped praying about Japan.

But now I'm praying. A couple weeks later, the phone rings. Hello, this is Jim Currie.

Jim Currie of Japan. This is Jim Currie. I'm going to fly to Detroit and I would like to come up to your place in London for lunch.

That's a very scary thought. Because a man doesn't fly 3,000 miles and then come to your house another three hours for lunch. Unless there's something on his mind.

We had agreed, my wife and I, that we would never tell anyone of our exercise like that. We'd never tell Mr. Currie of our exercise and of the one we're praying. Because if God is in it, Paul comes down to where Timothy is and says, Timothy, you come with me, we're going preaching.

So we're going to wait for Paul to come and take out the young man. It's not Timothy jumping up and down saying, take me, take me. So that's the way we're going to leave it.

But now we're seriously praying. Because here is a veteran missionary of 50 years about to come into our house and we're not going to say a word about what we're praying. He comes into our house, he talks all about Japan.

And he talks about this and that and how you say this and how you say that and we're back and forth. And eventually we retire to the living room and we're sitting in the living room and he's opening his Bible and he's reading it and he's praying to himself and he's praying to himself. Clearly we are having some serious dealings with God going on in this living room.

And I hardly know what to say. I didn't have to say anything because at that moment, Mr. Currie puts down his Bible. He says, can I ask you something? He says, I've never asked anyone this in the 50 years that we've been in Japan.

He says, would you and Ruth have any exercise whatsoever about coming to Japan to help in doing the work we've been seeking to do? I said, Mr. Currie, we've been praying about it for two years. Do you know what he said later? He'd been praying about us for two years before he came and asked us. Us in particular.

We didn't know it. You can understand how I feel. It feels like your whole life is just around you.

Like you have no choice. I said, yeah, we've been praying about it for two years. Ruth's face just lights up.

Mr. Currie's face lights up. Mrs. Currie's face lights up. I sink farther into the couch.

That kind of feeling. I said, Mr. Currie, you are in cahoots with Sandy Higgins. He goes, what are you talking about? I said, hang on a moment.

Went into my office, get out the email which I already had printed off. I said, look at this. At this point, after he read that, he jumps out of his seat practically.

He goes, deal it! Talking to his wife, even Sandy agrees with us. He had no idea of that email. So then he looks at me and he goes, Elvin, there's no pressure.

He pulls a map out of his pocket and says, but here's where you can live. And Mrs. Currie began going and saying, now you see this couch here? That's too big to bring. But you can bring that.

But don't bring that. But bring this. Bring this.

And Ruth's asking questions like, so where's the nearest grocery store to where we're going to live? Can I get this baby formula? Do I need to bring this? With horror, I realize my life is being planned for me. Well, I just asked Mr. Currie if he could please pray and leave. And he did.

I didn't ask him to leave. I prayed and then he left. Now I have a real problem.

Is this of God? Or is this of man? I need a word from the Lord. Most mornings we have a little baby, right? Two, three months old. I have the morning shift.

You know that one between four and six whenever it comes along. And I'd be sitting reading my Bible, you know, baby, bottle, Bible. And I'm trying to read my Bible.

And I'm getting nothing. God's not talking. The same mornings Ruth's coming out of her room going, the Lord has spoken again.

Here we are. Confirmation we're meant to go to Japan. Finally I said, Ruth, the Lord's not talking to me anymore.

He's only talking to you. Well she says, the Lord knows I need lots of verses. And you just need one.

I said, that's right. I just need one. That verse did not come for November, December, January, February.

Beginning of February now a Buddhist Chinese man had gotten saved. He was part of our class. And gotten saved we used to meet every Thursday to discuss the scriptures.

And being like a good oriental fellow he liked to do a book a week. You know, we'll do Romans next week. Romans? Yeah, the whole book.

So I would all studied up on Romans. He emails me the night before and says, I just read the book of Exodus. Let's change.

Let's do Exodus instead. Right. 5am, 6am, whatever it was.

Baby, bottle, Bible. And I'm going down to Exodus. And what am I going through? O Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant.

I actually thought in my mind, Moses, I know how you feel. I can't learn Japanese either. Who hath made man's mouth? Have not I the Lord? Or who maketh the dumb or deaf or seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go and I will be with thy mouth and will teach thee what thou shalt say.

I'm listening now. Now therefore go. What's my problem? My mouth.

I can't talk Japanese. I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say. When Ruth came out of the bedroom later that day, I said, Ruth, we're going to Japan.

Why? The Word of God. There's no other reason to take me to Japan than the Word of God. I was quite happy to stay in southwestern Ontario.

Quite happy to stay there. We thought we'd raise our children there. We thought we'd pick up the schools almost.

We had it all lined up. When the time came to leave, the university offered the greatest job possible, I thought. And they said even, say listen, you give us one year, they loaded Japan into your system for a year and then come back.

We'll give you your sabbatical after one year. I said, no. I'm going to Japan.

They said, you? Does your wife know about this? I said, yes. Well, we're going to talk to her. Well, they would be talking to the wrong person because Ruth got a call to Japan as much as I did.

And thank God she did because when I don't think I'm meant to be in Japan, she reminds me. She's called there. And if she doesn't feel good about Japan, I can remind her.

I'm called here. And so we have a call. And she's in Japan under her own visa.

If something would happen to me, that I was no longer, she could stay there. She's there in her own rights under the Japanese government. She is a missionary.

And quite rightly so because she has her own call. Well, we thought God has spoken. God has called.

All we have to do now is finish up this little education business and off we go. That little education business took two more years. God gave us another son in that time.

But you know what happened in those two years? God opened the doors of opportunity in the gospel and to try to preach and learn how to preach the word in that time. I was amazed. After that time, I was getting a little frustrated saying no one is taking me to preach.

I can't get out there and do the work of an evangelist. I can't get going. And we waited and waited.

And the moment we said we'll go to Japan, well now here's Canada. Well, not all Canada. Here's southwestern Ontario.

Here, do the work. And you know, God began to bless. That's tremendous.

When we went to our elder brethren and told them and said, listen we believe that God has called us to serve him full time. They all nodded their head. What were there? Six or seven of them.

They're all nodding their heads. Yes, yes. I said, in Japan.

And they all went, huh? Japan? We said, yeah, Japan. Why? So we told them just what we told you. For the slightly more embellished, it took me an hour with them.

It's only taken me 35 minutes with you. And Ruth was there too. And we told them exactly why we thought it was Japan.

And why we were just seeking the will of God and to obey it. And one by one, the brethren began to say what they thought. Some of them said, well, we thought you were wasting your time at that university and such.

Now we understand why. Japan is one of the most educated nations on earth. And their place in education has been something very important.

And here you are. You had to get it. Not to give it up.

But to take it with you over there. And of course, I've been talking with some here. It opened the doors to go to China this year when a Chinese university asked, would I please go and give some lectures on microeconomic theory.

Now, I could not have done that if I hadn't spent the decade of post-secondary education. So God has his plans in it all. So, did we get to Japan? Yes we did.

2001. We arrived in Japan. What did we find when we get to Japan? We found 127 million people all talking something different.

We found 127 million people all eating something different. We found 127 million people all looking quite different than we are. And we are the foreigners.

We are the ones who smell funny, eat funny, talk funny. We are the ones who don't fit in. Do you know what they call us? Well, they're supposed to call us which means outside country person.

Foreigner. But they don't call us that. They just call us which means outsider.

You're an outsider. You do not belong here. And they spend, they don't spend all day.

But a good portion of the time we are made to feel very much that we are outsiders. We try our best to fit in but we are out of sync with our culture. We really are.

We travel on the trains at rush hour with a big double stroller. Well, have you ever seen the trains at rush hour in Tokyo? As they jam you in and they get on their white gloves and they push the people in? Can you imagine if you're the gentleman that happens to be beside an American made grey coat double stroller as it now is piercing your body in various places? And they're looking at us like, you are what are, no, what are you doing here? We come to eat some of this food and I've said that at times it's like the great sheep that was let down that Peter saw on a vision, right? All full of all manner of creeping things. And it's wise Peter slaying it.

And I've said it before, screw it, it does not taste any different than your child's eraser. And the octopus is actually very tasty but the little suction cups stick to the top of your mouth and you kind of have to put them off a bit. And you eat lost sea urchin, it's like cotton cotton, right? Soaked in kerosene.

And it seems to go up and down a few times before it eventually stays down. But you know that's the easy part of Japan. You know what the hard part is? Not being able to communicate.

Can I tell you why? There was a man who came to my door, we had him a full story, the third story is Evangelical Publishers, the first two stories are the Gospel Hall in Fuchu, which is a suburb of Tokyo. And it used to be the Curry's place, they moved out to another nearby city so we could have this ideally located place. Perfect for two little boys who like to climb our windows, right? So the first thing we did was put locks on all the windows to keep our kids in.

Because it's four stories on concrete. People say, do your children have fun playing outside? You know, in your garden? Well, there is this much room between us and the wall so it's usually filled with cement around, right? We don't have a lot of space in Tokyo. Anyway, this man is at my door and he's agitated.

And I'm trying my best in my Japanese to understand what is this man saying. I've been going to school now for almost two years, two and a half years or so and I'm trying to understand clearly this man, how he needed something and I'm just trying to help him. Finally, I'm trying to tell him a bit of the Gospel thinking that's why he's there.

I finally said, listen, if you die right now where will you go? Do you have any ideas, sir? He says, yes, I go to hell. Clearly this man has heard the Gospel somewhere. This is not a Buddhist talking.

This is not a Shintoist talking. Buddhists don't believe in anything and a Shintoist believes in everything and it's just where did this man get it? Well, after talking a bit further he got some of the Gospel in a prison, which raises a lot of eyebrows as to what he's doing on my door right now, right? Anyway, we're trying our best but I couldn't help him. I felt so helpless after 20-25 minutes with this man.

One of the elders was nearby and I summonsed him and I was in the assembly. I said, could you please listen to this man here and tell me what's he saying? He says, I'm busy, I've got an appointment I've got to get a train. I knew that.

The trains run to the 2nd and so do the elders. So everyone goes just as according to the way they should. Right? And they want to keep a schedule.

So I'm interfering with his schedule. I said, no, please, please. Okay, so he stops and says, so, what's the problem? Oh.

Oh. Come on in. No, no, no, no.

No, no, no. We're sinners too. Come on in.

And he gets him inside. I see a motion to his wife cancel the appointment, order food. And he sits down with the man and begins to talk with him on a conversation that didn't end for 3 or 4 hours.

Do you know why? That man was walking to the train station to step in front of the express train and commit suicide. He was 10 minutes away from the station and he stops at my house. And I couldn't help him.

What if that elder hadn't been there? That really, really ruptured me. I have to learn Japanese. Do you know how many suicides there are in Japan every year? There were 35,000 last year.

That's almost 100 a day. Oh, you say that sounds like America. That's getting close.

But America has 3 times as many people as Japan. They've got the highest per capita suicide rate and it's happening in people in their 20s and 30s. I've got emails right now sitting in my Bible that say something like this one.

Internet related suicides. If you're thinking about suicide, please contact me. This message appeared on an internet bulletin board.

Five days later another message declared. Applications closed. Thank you.

24 year old man who had posted the message was later found dead with two women. The car they dived in contained sleeping pills and bits of burnt charcoal suggesting the trio killed themselves through carbon monoxide poisoning. This type of suicide is on the increase in many of the participants in their 20s and 30s.

Visit the website to learn how to kill themselves. Here's what a well-known psychiatrist in Japan said. Hundreds of thousands of people are potentially suicidal and many of them wish to be saved.

Interesting language. Wish to be saved or if they die wish that at least someone is with them at the time. When your train is delayed and you know it's because someone has jumped in front of the express train down the track, I cannot begin to describe to you that gut-wrenching feeling.

I can't understand 35,000 people but I can understand one when it's the man standing at my door. Why do they commit suicide? Because they have no hope. They have nothing.

They have everything this world can give them. The man standing there had his cell phone in his briefcase. Well-dressed.

They will go to work. They will clean out their desk. They'll have everything in order and go walking calmly to the train station and stand and wait for the best train to jump in front of.

They'll go to those cliffs that are very popular. My brother and my sister, this is a nation of 127 million people that are without hope. And they also don't know they're lost.

They have nothing to live for and they've got very little love. Their father works all day. Morning till night, he'll see his children on Saturday mornings and he'll say, get out of the house, I want to sleep.

There's a whole rising generation now that is dysfunctional. The whole country is about to fall apart. Morally.

There's a facade there and they won't steal the money out of your wallet if you drop it on the sidewalk. And they won't steal my case if I leave it by the door of the subway. It'll be there an hour later if I happen to leave it.

That's not a problem. But underneath that thin veneer is a wicked, lying, immoral society. Where the men drink every night and live in a way they ought not to and their lives turn the other way.

And they live a life that is wrong before God and it is sucking the life out of their souls. And we come along to them and say, there is a God who loves you. And they go, what? One God? Who loves? I was telling someone here earlier today, the man who started the singing in the assembly of Uchu, a Morisan, he trained to be a kamikaze pilot, but he never got to make his flight because the war ended two weeks too early.

Well, I mean, depending on your point of view. He never made that flight. That's what he was trained to do.

He was trained to be a suicide bomber. Never made the flight. The American missionaries were on the streets of Tokyo.

He heard the gospel. He was saved. He was an elder in the assembly for a number of years.

Started the singing. Nice man. Good man.

Very Japanese man. He died of cancer just a year and a half ago. Maybe two years ago.

His widow told me not that long ago, she says, you know what? A Morisan, speaking of her husband as Mr. Imori. Right? He never once told me in all our married life he loved me. I said, what? They think it's funny.

You know, the way that I would call my wife dear or honey or something like that. They would mimic it. They would sometimes banter back and forth and call each other, you know, hello dear and they'd all go into fits of laughter.

But a real man doesn't do things like that, right? A real man does not show any sign of affection or anything. It's different in China. In China, people are hugging each other and kissing each other.

We go to Japan. The assembly in Fuchu since we've gone. Oh, you say, wow, you're really preaching hard? No, I never preached to one of them.

I couldn't preach yet, but I can pray. I've learned that there's a work to be done through prayer. My brother and my sister, you have joined in Mansfield in praying for the work that we have been doing.

And God has been pleased to answer your prayers. Let me tell you about one of them. Mochizuki-san is a lady, a teacher.

Teaching over there is getting to be like teaching over here, right? Very hard to do. No respect in the schools and things like that. And so this woman comes with her son.

Her son is training to be a Buddhist priest. Ever had any Buddhist priests come to your gospel meeting? Well, there he is. And I went up to him and I'm trying to talk to him a little bit and he says, Oh, yeah, but this gospel, this Bible is very difficult to understand.

Very difficult. I said, really? Difficult to understand? Oh, yeah, yeah. I said, really? Okay, just hold it a minute.

Okay. Now tell me, what's difficult about this? For God so loved the world. I said, are you with me? God loves the world? Yeah, yeah.

And I went through the verse and I go, do you understand that? Yeah, that's easy to understand. I said, what's the problem? You say it's so difficult. It's very difficult.

I said, the difficulty is not in understanding what this book says. The difficulty is in believing it and you don't want to believe it. As a Buddhist student, he has to study hundreds and hundreds of books this size.

You know, we have the word of Christ. We've got the word of God. We all go back to the same book.

Do you know what they have to do in Buddhism? They have to study everything that everyone has ever said about what Buddha said. Could you imagine if in order to be saved, in order to truly understand Christianity, you had to read everything Darby wrote, everything Kelly wrote, everything Norman Crawford wrote, everything everyone wrote in what the Bible teaches or what the Bible think it teaches or whatever all the other series are, and all these things? You had to read all of that and then maybe you could be saved? These people are so blind and they're so full of knowledge and they're completely empty. We come along with this book, and it's a powerful book, and people will read a sign on a post saying, 300 meters that way, the gospel hall, the Christian meeting center, or whatever you want to translate it as.

300 meters that way. And the people go, maybe that has it. Maybe they have it.

And they'll come in and they'll listen to the gospel and they'll be saved. So what are we doing? We're just going to school. We're just learning how to pray for people, and we're trying our best to talk to people.

Have I ever preached? Yes. Have I ever prayed? Yes. Have I ever opened a Bible reading? Oh yeah, I can open powerful Bible readings.

I spend all week studying for a three minute opening, and I write it all out, and I say everything I know in Japanese. And that's it. I'm done.

When I pray, I write it all out, and I memorize it and pray it to the Lord 40 times, and then I get up in spontaneous worship and tell the Lord something he's heard 50 times before. Why do I do it? Well, it's the only way to do it, to get started. Well, we took our first little series of meetings in August.

Four times, three days, to children and their parents, and we tried our best in these 30-40 minute sections to try to explain the gospel. And do you know what I found? The same thrill of preaching the gospel in English exists when you preach it in Japanese. That surprised me.

I thought the thrill came from being eloquent and being able to talk at 800 words a minute. No. The thrill comes in communicating the Word of God to a soul that needs Christ.

There's the thrill. And I found it exists in Japanese. What a delight.

I can't wait to get back. I can't wait to get into the studies. Two weeks there, and I'll probably be wishing I was back here.

But I'm just saying, that's the goal. To tell people about Christ.