“Well, that was fast.“
Special Update 2025 — One Year in Japan
Your Role in Our Story
Let’s do a recap. From our first trip to Japan in 2018, to our decision to pursue it in 2020, to a year ago today, we have aspired to do missions work among the unreached of Japan. Missions work of the Titus sort, mind you. Many things needed to happen in that window for us to end up where we are today. Taking the title of “Missionary” is no small thing.
For one to move his family to a foreign, pagan country with few Christians and multiple cultural obstacles, one needs to be properly and biblically equipped. No small thing indeed.
First, we needed to be affirmed by our church. In the spring of 2021, our pastors ordained me, and the church gave their ascent to send our family to Japan. We wouldn’t dare pull something like this without proper affirmation (See Acts 13). Second, I had training to finish up. Our church affirmed me after a three-year pastoral residency which prepared me for local church ministry. It was a slow, deliberate, and foundational program. I am grateful to God for it and miss it. But seminary work still needed finishing too. Seminary of course isn’t vital for everyone, but it was for me. I was able to snag an MA before we left the States and have been slowly working away at an MDiv degree even now.
Third, Sierah needed to come with me! I knew I was asking her to give up nearly everything she knew and owned to follow me. It was difficult for her for all the reasons you’d imagine! But as her namesake, Sarah, in Genesis followed her husband, she willingly followed me as the Lord led. Fourth, we needed a plan for Japan and missionary partners to help us achieve it. Our church in Kentucky had already partnered with veteran missionaries in Tokyo. They were the ones who hosted me and Sierah on our original trip back in 2018. They have been vital partners in our journey ever since! We would not be here, plugged into our local, Japanese church, without them!
Fifth, we needed YOU! We are still blown away at how many of you decided we were worthy of your support. Of hundreds of missionary families to choose from (many of them heading to far cheaper countries), you chose us. (Before we had even done anything, no less!) A handful of you have known us for a long time, but most of you haven’t. I don’t know how or why God drew our hearts together. But my highest desire is that we steward your support well for God’s glory and the spread of the gospel in our little corner of Japan. Words cannot properly express our gratitude. But hopefully our actions and the way we use your resources for years to come will spell out a more worthy “thank you.”
The Quickest, Slowest Year of Our Lives
I’m writing to you today from a coffee shop at our local mall. This morning, Sierah and I dropped the kids off at their pre-school. She then dropped me off at the mall and ran home to host a couple of Japanese moms over brunch. One of them is not a Christian. Last week, at this very coffee shop, I watched a group of five Buddhist monks in their orange robes all scrolling on their iPhones while waiting for their coffee orders. (Picture in our next update.) Meanwhile, I was sitting across the floor working on a sermon from 1 Peter on a proper Christian view on suffering. It was a surreal moment. But it was only one of so, so many since we moved here. I feel torn so often due to this culture and language barrier. (By God’s grace, we are making progress.)
Well, I’m back at that coffee shop and I’m finding it quite a challenge to summarize all the ways God has been proving his kindness to us these past twelve months. Let’s do a refresh from this time last year. After waiting for eight months, we (Joe, Sierah, and Sophie) received our visas with ninety days to use them. That was the day Ezra was born. So, naturally, he had no such visa to his name. Three months later to the day, and after several providential steps, we landed in Japan with both littles in tow. Within those first three months, we secured a perfectly fine house that was going to be demolished and the Lord provided for us the exact transportation we needed. Our missionary partners helped us get all of our paperwork settled, get utilities and cell phones set up, get the kids registered for school, and help us meet several of our neighbors. Since then, we’ve been plodding along trying to establish new family rhythms, navigate new relationship dynamics with the Japanese, and somehow get a grasp on the basics of the language. God has blessed Sierah’s womb with a third little, whom we can’t wait to meet this summer! Sophie is growing like a weed—so is her Japanese! Ezra is the only other white kid in their pre-school. And our times with the church folks keeps growing sweeter and sweeter as we are getting to know them.
One quick blessing to us is how many of you have already come to see us! And others are already on the calendar in the near future, starting next month. Some visitors have been family; some have been supporters and friends. But there is another third group of sorts. We’ve also been connecting with other potential missionaries seeking to join ranks in the Land of the Rising Sun and get plugged into Kingdom work! God is doing something over here. And we are excited to be a part of it.
I’ll have more to say about our Spring 2025 season here in our next quarterly update, especially about our church involvement. But for now, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you. We wouldn’t be here without you. And we wouldn’t want to be here. It’s been as good a first year a missionary family could have asked for. And do you know what that means? That means we are being covered in your prayers. Thank you from each of us!
Grace and peace,
Joe, Sierah, Sophie, Ezra, Baby Girl
