The greatest challenge of working in Japan is how to earn the mutual trust of non-Christians. Each Japanese community has lots of projects. Community festivals are held in summer. All festivals are religious oriented although many people are not aware of it, so we cannot attend them. Sometimes they have a work day on Sunday morning when they clean the surrounding areas. We cannot attend it either because of the schedule conflict.
Rather we need to offer them something useful. In April 2011 we plan to have a community event and invite them. I hope we will get to know people. Meantime we can invite them to the assemblies and offer them a free Bible and Intro to Bible on DVD.
We will continue having new events where we can keep on inviting people. Many of them do not come. But someday they will come to see us. Japanese have lots of prejudices about Christianity. Groups like Mormon and Johovah’s Witness confuse their understanding of Christianity.
I hope that we will give them an impression that we are good citzens and keep social norms. Someday God will open up their hearts.