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How You Are Making a Difference in Nagoya, Japan

November 2, 2015
How You Are Making a Difference in Nagoya, Japan

How You Are Making a Difference in Nagoya, Japan, Through the Cooperative Program

International Mission Board missionaries Jeff and Lori Loomis are working hard to bring the Gospel to the third largest city in the world—Nagoya, Japan. Every day they look into the faces of nine million people who have never heard the Gospel before in their lives, a luxury we take for granted in Arkansas. 

The Loomises rely on the Cooperative Program (CP) for much of their support. When someone in an Arkansas Baptist church gives to their home church, the church gives a considerable portion of that gift to missions through the CP.

The couple hopes to see more full-time missionaries join them so they can make a bigger impact throughout the city, but until more financial gifts are made through the church, they must rely on the help of short-term missions trips and summer interns provided through partner churches, such as First Baptist Church, Hot Springs

Short-term missionaries like Haley Jo Wesson, a student from Ouachita Baptist University (OBU), take to the streets with Gospel tracts and information about English practice, a desired skill among Japanese businessmen and students. The volunteers go to the biggest apartment complexes and shopping centers and place Gospel tracts in mailboxes and business centers (a practice that is legal in Japan), and anyone walking by. This way, Jeff and Lori can cover more ground. “We are literally the ‘legs’ for the missionaries,” Haley says. “It’s awesome to think that when someone calls Jeff and Lori, it’s because we handed out that tract.”

Joey Dean, a freshman at OBU also went to Nagoya, using his musical talents to reach the Japanese. “I was nervous at first,” Joey says, “but the Lord showed me a perspective I’d never seen as the people were hungry for His Word.”

Elizabeth Standage who eventually shared the Gospel with 31-year-old Yuki had all kinds of excuses not to go on her first missions trip to Japan. “My mother had just been diagnosed with cancer; I was trying to pay for college; I didn’t know anything about Nagoya, Japan … but (a church member) called and asked me to consider it. They needed me! I still couldn’t afford it, but with some fundraising projects and church help, we made it.”

People like Hannah, Joey, and Elizabeth need your help. People like the Loomises rely on your support and the Cooperative Program. It begins with the tithes and offering that you give to your local Arkansas Southern Baptist church. No matter how big or small, your gifts are making a difference in the Kingdom.

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