Gordon’s primary responsibilities are taking care of the family and providing hospitality for our weekly Bible Study & fellowship, and meeting the college students God brings us. He & Lee Ann also teach a Sunday school class for parents at the Soshin Baptist Church with 2 other committed couples. The class content has been basic Christianity and parenting from a Christian perspective. Lee Ann is a full time English conversation teacher at Soshin Girl’s School. She teaches Junior High and Senior High students, speaks in the chapel services, interacts with students in the Christian student club and English club, tutors English conversation for students preparing to go on exchange study tours and partners to lead the weekly home Bible study.


Lee Ann writes:  Coming to Japan, I felt that somehow, we weren’t “real” missionaries because this country is not a primitive, undeveloped or dangerous place. Other missionaries tell stories of incredible physical challenges. We, on the other hand, live in safety and comfort with all the “conveniences of home.” But while other missionaries tell stories of people coming to know Jesus, we are finding people only interested in knowing about Him.
    It is discouraging to watch people burdened down with obligations and responsibilities, to hear resignation in their voices, to see friends and colleagues struggle with physical and emotional illness related to stress. What is more discouraging is that the freeing message of Jesus is somehow not given adequately (?) or received with joy!
    I needed some encouragement, a motivational message. I looked to the “cloud of witnesses,” those valiant Christians who have gone before. One book I read was Nests Above the Abyss by Isobel Kuhn. She and her husband were missionaries in the mountains of China near the border of Myanmar. The mountains there rise nearly straight up thousands of feet on the sides of a river. She called the place “Satan’s stronghold.”
   The last chapters of her book emphasize the part that our supporters, the “unseen missionaries,” play. Since “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms,” it is the prayers of the saints that are fighting for the lives of God’s creation.
    •    Pray with us to break down Satan’s grip on the Japanese.
    •    Pray for those who profess faith in Christ that their faith be fanned into flame.
    •    Pray for us that we would exercise to be physically and spiritually fit.
    •    Please pray for Sakurako, a senior at Soshin School. She loves to study the Bible and sing Christian songs. She is probably the most enthusiastic member of the student Christian group at Soshin. But she told me she is forbidden by her mother to become Christian. So she has not surrendered her life to Christ.
    •    Please pray for Takayuki. He has studied the Bible under other missionaries and at Christian schools but can not seem to make a commitment to Christ.
    •    Please pray for Tomoki, a college student God put in our path. He and others at Kanagawa University are being befriended by a group of Christians from the international church we attend.
    •    Pray for these and others just like them. And pray for us that we can turn on the light of Christ in the dark places and be salt where it’s needed.  Pray that we would work “while it is still light!” The window of opportunity is still open in Japan. Christianity is viewed positively. Christian private schools are in demand.