Josh and Japan...

Josh came in to the office today carrying a box of his mom's homemade cookies! Always trying to charm the crowd...

He and I were meeting up to go over some of the Serve Asia Quickplace stuff (a great resource for our short-term workers). It's soooooo much better to work in a team and brainstorm ideas together, rather than thinking alone. As we were meeting to discuss and be productive (he has dial-up at home, which has become such a pain when working on website creation)...we got talking about Japan (as usual). You see...Josh has been given the call to head out to Japan as a long-term missionary with OMF. Although he would give anything to go right this minute, he's developing a prayer and financial support base...which has been taking more time than initially expected. It's all in God's perfect timing I guess. Many people might say, "why would you financially support someone going to Japan?!" Japan is one of the most richest countries in the world, with high-tech stuff, materialism galore, etc. It's not exactly the shabbiest place to live (though space is tight). The cost of living in Tokyo is probably more expensive than living in most places in Canada...so why even support such a person? Though the country might have great material wealth, it is spiritually one of the darkest places. A Christian friend of mine was saying that right when he got out of the Tokyo airport, he started becoming really cranky and pissed off for no apparent reason. There's much light that's needed in this deprived country...

Another interesting aspect about this whole situation is that Josh is in a wheelchair. His calling is to help disabled people in Japan to come to know JC as Saviour and Lord. Though it's really not his task of converting anyone (we know whose job that is!), our main task is to share our faith as we know and have experienced it :) Check out his website.

You can be a part of missions in a very special way by being a part of Josh's ministry :)