Choices Over Coffee

Can I share something with you? Starbucks has a special place in my heart. It was within the walls of Starbucks that several important events have taken place in my life. Seth and I had our first date at Starbucks; another time we decided to officially be “boyfriend and girlfriend” at a corner table in Starbucks. Probably the most significant time I’ve spent at the coffee shop was last December, here in Wichita. It was there that Seth and I officially came to the decision to go to Japan as missionaries. Therefore you can see why Starbucks has been a place of decisions for us! I’m happy that I will be able to acesss Starbucks just as easily in Japan as I am here in America.

Seth and I have a passion to work with unreached people. “Unreached” is simply a term used to identify groups that are less that 2.0% Christian. The Japanese people are desperately unreached. In Japan, people practice Buddhism, Shintoism, Ancestor Worship, and Atheism. Less than 0.7% of the population is Christian.

As our team of 12 adults and 6 kids work to start churches in Nagoya, Japan, we face many barriers. Most people in Japan are able to go their entire life without ever meeting a Christian or hearing an explanation of the Gospel. There is much confusion in Japan about Christianity. Japanese people have asked our teammates, “What is Jesus?” and “The Bible…is that a song?” Ideas that are familiar in the west such as “church” and “salvation” are strange and foreign to Japanese people. Jesus desperately desires the Japanese people to join his family and love him. We need strong prayer support to break through Satan’s strongholds in Japan. We need prayer warriors who will give their time to ask God to change Japan and allow for millions of Japanese to hear the Gospel for the first time. We realize that the only way for any change to come in Japan is from God’s power, not from ourselves.

And so, we look to share the Gospel with anyone and everyone we can in Japan. As I frequent Starbucks in Japan, I hope that it continues to be a place where significant things happen. I hope to sit across the table from Japanese women and share with them a story they have never heard – that God loves them, and has reached out to give them eternal life. As I share tea with Japanese friends in the future, I pray there will be many open hearts to God’s good news. I hope to reach across the table to the hand of an unreached Japanese woman and share with her the Story of Stories. And maybe, by God’s grace, I will again see that great decisions can be made while sharing a cup of coffee.