JAPAN MISSION: Amenables 

Mission statement

To follow the commission of Jesus Christ, we have responded to create a positive impact in the ongoing mission of Christianity in Japan.  We will endeavor to make God's power known to the youth in Japan through contemporary worship within the context of school chapel services.  

Introduction

We are a team of American Baptist and United Methodist young adults who have been invited as volunteer missionaries to Japan.

During our two week stay, from June 16th to 30th, we will be working with Roberta Stephens, LeeAnn and Gordon Hwang, to help them in their ministry.  The members of our group include: Woun Kim, Sun Kim, and Jeremy Cho, who are members of Japanese Baptist Church of Seattle, and Lawrence Lee, a member of San Francisco Korean United Methodist Church.  Sun and Woun are currently attending American Baptist Seminary of the West, following God’s call to be Christian ministers.  Jeremy is a recent graduate of the University of Washington, seeking to explore new opportunities to serve the Lord.  Lawrence is a graduate of UC Berkeley and worship leader, seeking to use music to bring people to Christ.

While our backgrounds and experiences in life may differ, we have come together in response to God’s invitation to serve as music ministers and working with the Japanese in other capacities.  As part of our music ministry, we will be leading chapel services at two locations in Yokohama – the Soshin Girl’s High School and Kanto Gakuin.  Although these schools are historically affiliated with American Baptist, there is still a great challenge in making Christianity relevant to the youth and young adult population.  Through God’s grace, we hope to use music as a testimony and a tool to share the love and the power of Christ.  In addition to music ministry, we will be working directly with the Japanese people, through teaching English and facilitating workshops. 

Serving in Japan presents many challenges, both financial and cultural.  The estimated cost of travel and food expenses during the mission is $8000.  We humbly invite you to partner with us in this work for the Christian churches in Japan.  We have allocated enough funds to cover a portion of this cost, but unfortunately we do not have the resources to cover all of it by ourselves.  We ask those who are able and committed to spreading God’s love in Japan, to give as they are called to give.  In addition to financial support, we sincerely ask for your prayers – that our team would overcome the boundaries of culture and language and show the Japanese that the minority Christian population in Japan has something to say to them.  For those who wish to support us and learn more about our mission work, we would be honored if you would invite us to your places of worship.

We have faith that God led us here thus far, and that God is already working in Japan.  We are only a small part of what our missionaries are doing in not our pastures but God’s pasture.  We are going to partner with them, and share with the people of Japan the Christian music that has fed us spiritually and evoked in us the love and passion for God.  We trust that God will use us, work with us in ways that are very unconventional, yet powerful.  We now ask that you partner with us, just as we are partnering with the people of Japan, to follow the command of Jesus to go to all nations and baptize.  We wished to baptize them through our music, our love for God and our love for the Japanese people.   

Special Thanks

The Amenables would like to express our warm gratitude to John and Tomoko Armagost and Yuki Sakiyama for their gracious work in translating this website into Japanese. Thank you!