5. The nature and purpose of your ministry.

This is the fifth in a series of questions I'm answering for a friend's Bible college assignment. You'll find links to the other answers in the series here.

It is "relatively" easy to sprout off all the stuff we do that makes up our ministries, but I need to take one step back to help you see the context of what we're doing. 


We're missionaries with OMF International. OMF has over 1,200 missionaries reaching out to East Asians. One step closer to us, OMF Japan has about 120 missionaries working in church planting, evangelism, training, student ministry, and support ministries.

Through God‘s grace we aim to see a vibrant, biblical church, reproducing in Japan and reaching out in mission to other peoples.                                            OMF Japan Vision (for more about OMF Japan's ministries go here).

So in that context, David and I are support workers. We support other missionaries who are working on the front line in church planting and evangelism. 


OMF considers our main ministry to be with the education of missionary kids. David works full-time at the Christian Academy in Japan teaching maths and science to high schoolers, plus mentoring new teachers, and heading up the maths and science departments at the school.


My ministries are not so easily described. I have several hats, besides supporting David and my three boys. 

• Managing Editor of a magazine that is for and by missionaries. It is the publication of the Japan Evangelical Missionary Association, an association that OMF is a part of. This job takes up quite a lot of my time.
• Answer the email enquiries that come from the above OMF Japan website, providing information or directing traffic to the appropriate persons.
• Blog and freelance writing — seeking to encourage and educate others with the stories God has given me.
• Edit and produce an annual prayer calendar for OMF Japan missionaries to use as gifts for supporters.
• We help out at Sunday School at our local Japanese church once a month (David teaches and I play the piano). I also teach a bimonthly English Bible Study that is where the church directs people looking for English lessons. (I guess this last role isn't so much of a support role.)
• Occasionally I use my Occupational Therapy skills to assess or advise CAJ families on issues related to their children.
• I keep up with the Japanese friends God has given me, they don't know the Lord yet, so we pray and mobilise prayer for them.

These are the main things I do, there are others, but they are quite small roles at present.

Not much of what we do is directly involved with the above vision statement, however as I said, we are supporting those who do work on the front line of ministry. Therefore we feel a tremendous sense of ownership of the vision. We are team players. Being a part of that team, as opposed to just being a teacher and his side-kick editing-writing-emailing wife. What we do is part of a bigger vision of reaching Japan for Jesus.

Next question could be a fun one:

6. Your experience of culture shock.