The following update is from HeartCry missionary, Luis. Luis is from Peru and moved to Japan to evangelize the Japanese people. When he arrived he discovered a Latino population that was in need of God’s word. Luis planted a church in Tokyo that is mutli-ethnic, multi-national, in both including Peruvians and Japanese.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Praise God for every opportunity He gives us to make known His name to a world that doesn’t know him. Here are some opportunities that God is giving us here in Japan.
Last weekend, the Lord blessed me with the opportunity of helping an elderly lady who was stuck in a tiny car with a flat tire, the traffic was slowing down and many drivers were getting impatient. Normally in Japan people are hesitant about accepting help because they do not want to bother people, pride and other reasons, even more so from a foreigner because they see them with distrust. But I decided to go and assist so I parked some blocks away, brought my car jack and tools and I was ready to help. Praise God that the elderly lady accepted. I pushed the car to the sidewalk and replaced the spare tire. Due to the recurrent crimes committed by immigrant Peruvians, sometimes our reputation is not well seen, so after expressing her gratitude and asking about me, I was planning to answer her with “I am from Peru!” But the Lord placed in my heart that the most important thing to lift up and make known to a non-believer is the name of Jesus. So I decided to just identify myself as who I am really primarily and to deflect all gratitude and praises to the name of Jesus. The lady was surprised with the answer and I told her that the only one she should thank for any good in her life is Jesus Christ our God. She didn’t give me more time to share the Gospel with her but I was glad that for the first time she pronounced and heard the name of Jesus as the one whom we should praise. Our family ended up the day praying for the lady’s salvation. Please pray so our Lord will continue revealing himself to that elderly lady and that someday she will be in heaven with us worshiping the only one who deserves to be exalted above all.
Praise the Lord for blessing our church with the chance to preach the Gospel and to assist a Peruvian single mother and her 15-year-old son who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and is presumed to be in his last months. It was a precious moment when she told me by phone that she was accepting the visit from a team from our church.
That visit took us more than 12 hours of driving and we weren’t sure how much the mother was going to let us share about the Gospel with her son. The only thing we knew is that our Lord was giving us the opportunity to find our way with wisdom and be able to preach the gospel to that anguished and hopeless family. All our church was praying for the health of the son and for wisdom to find the right time and way to share the gospel with them.
At the beginning the mother told us that we could talk with her son about “religion”, but she asked all doctors and visitors to not tell him the truth about his short time of life, no negative things, not mention sin or hell or things that could depress him more. She told us that she believed that her son was going to be automatically in heaven because he was just 14 and according to her catholic teachings, baptized children are like angels. To this difficult wall was added the severe pain and cries from the boy because the medicines weren’t working and at the time we visited he had to wait for an hour for the next chemotherapy. We could say some greetings to him but we left the room because the pain started to get unbearable for the boy and nurses were coming in and out. We started praying in the hall and asking God to please give us a chance to share the gospel with the boy.
The mother told us to come back to the room because her son’s pain stopped but that we shouldn’t address her son directly with the elements of the gospel. Praise the Lord that the mother agreed with us praying for her son quoting scripture. We were able to make the Gospel message to her son by quoting scripture and at the end the boy told us that he was going to take all what he heard into account. It is amazing how powerful and sufficient is the word of God. Sometimes we have some systematic methods, ways, plans and ideas to deliver the Gospel, but we shouldn’t forget the importance of memorizing scripture and about the power that contains in it.
After we finished the prayer, the doctors took the boy to his chemotherapy. We waited with the mother outside the chemotherapy room, comforting her tears, we felt her desolation but comforted her with the Gospel. She thanked us and told us that she understood her sin and was going to start praying to God and quit smoking. We know that we planted the seeds of the Gospel. We told her that we will wait for her call any time so we can come to continue sharing about our Lord Jesus with her and her son. For now we will continue praying so the seeds of the Gospel will grow and produce eternal fruit. Please pray so they will accept our visit and donations again and for the salvation of Martha and her son Lucas.
Praise the Lord for blessing us with more families visiting our church. Please pray that the Word of the Lord will call them, feed them and that our Lord will continue challenging them together with us to grow, serve and preach wherever individuals are in our progress to being conformed to the image of Christ.
Praise God for blessing our home with more opportunities to give hospitality. In the last months we were asked to host some families and groups from different countries and it is a joyful hard work. We have been blessed listening to the things that our Lord is doing in other parts of the world and also having great conversations about many doctrinal and theological topics for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
We are still looking for a stable building which we can use as a church, please help us praying so our Lord will lead us to a better place and better conditions to grow and train our church members and opportunities to share the gospel. Thank you always for your faithfulness to the Lord, prayers and support.
Blessings from Japan, Sayonara. Luis Ramirez Tokyo-Japan.