Before the harvest–even before cultivation, planting, or sowing–there must first come the hard work of tilling the soil.
Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. (Eph. 6:19-20 NIV)
I returned to Ofunato after my whirlwind weekend trip to Los Angeles for a job interview. It was April, 2015.
We had two months left in Japan.
Two months left to pack up our things, ship them to Santa Ana, sell off the things we couldn’t bring, vacate the apartment that God provided, and of course, say our goodbyes to our friends in Ofunato.
The Ofunato base staff asked me which kasetsu (temporary housing for people displaced by the tsunami of 2011) I’d like to go to before we left. We had been visiting a number of them regularly over the years, so we tried to schedule them all in to my “Ofunato Farewell Tour.” Many of these places were kasetsu where I had been teaching tai chi, but only one of them had me come and teach on a regular schedule.
I’ll call this place “Hilltop.”
Hilltop was one of the first kasetsu I served at when we had just arrived in town. I remember that morning in November 2013 when, as I was getting ready for the day, I felt an odd heaviness and dread lingering over me like a cloud. As I prayed for God to shield our team from it, I got the sense that a spiritual battle would be fought during this visit.
As we drove up to Hilltop, my coworkers warned me that the staff of this kasetsu could be mean, and that I might not want to share the gospel too strongly with anyone, as the residents didn’t seem very receptive to it. Tension was already mounting between our staff during the drive, for no apparent reason. I recognized this as a symptom of spiritual attacks.
We arrived at the meeting hall. I immediately noticed a kamidana, or Shinto altar, in the middle of the room. As the rest of the team set up for the event, and as rowdy kasetsu residents began to take their seats, clamoring to be entertained, I whispered a prayer and asked the Holy Spirit to bind any spirits that were not of God, forbidding them from interfering with His plan for this event.
The event began–it was a Christmas wreath craft that the residents would work on for an hour, before having ochako, or tea time. Being new to town and new to this ministry, I did my best to stay in the background, quietly helping to distribute supplies. I spoke hardly any Japanese at this point and was unable to communicate with any of the residents. However, I was asked to deliver a brief message (in English, translated to Japanese) about Christmas towards the end of the event.
I was told to keep it soft and non-threatening, but as I discerned the spiritual battle going on around me, I filled with a supernatural resolve to not shy away from talking about faith.
The first hour-and-forty-five minutes of this event had felt off, with that cloud of heaviness showing no signs of dissipating. Now, it was my turn to speak–the new guy, the big dopey gaijin who couldn’t speak Japanese and had something to share about Christmas.
It was nerve-wracking enough for me to make my speaking debut in Ofunato under these circumstances.
Then, she walked into the room.
An older woman with a fritzy perm and big glasses shuffled into the meeting room. She had skipped the craft event and tea time social, arriving just in time for my message. And she didn’t look very happy about it.
Her face was frozen in a scowl. And, to make her look even more intimidating, she had pieces of tape holding up parts of her face in some sort of DIY facelift.
I would affectionately refer to her as “Tape Face” from that point on.
Tape Face took a seat and started chatting loudly with her friends. They told her to quiet down as we were about to begin “story time.”
I began to talk about the wreaths they had made, and how they related to Christmas. (I was fully aware that they didn’t really, that wreaths had pagan origins that had nothing to do with the birth of Christ, so I talked about evergreen branches and how they represent everlasting hope. I was pulling all of this out of thin air.)
Tape Face uttered some words that I didn’t understand, disrupting my message. I tried to ignore it and carried on, talking about Jesus and the everlasting hope that He offers–an eternal hope that will never wither like the evergreens eventually will.
I talked about the birth of Jesus and why the Creator would choose to be born as a human baby (John 1: 1-14).
That’s when an unfinished wreath on the table caught my attention. It was brown, dry, and barren, as it had not yet been decorated.
It looked like a crown of thorns.
In a moment of divine inspiration, I grabbed the wreath, placed it on my head, and talked about Jesus sacrificing Himself on a cross to pay for our sins. And I kept going: on our need for salvation, the promise of eternal life, and the time when Jesus will return to make a new heaven and a new earth, where there will be no more tears or death or mourning or crying or pain (Rev. 21: 1-4).
Instead of a softball about Christmas wreaths, I ended up pitching a gospel message that covered Genesis to Revelation, all in about 7 minutes.
Then, I asked if I could pray for them. My translator made the ask humbly and politely.
I saw residents nodding in assent. My translator gave me the green light.
So I began to pray a simple prayer of blessing, inviting God into this place to do His work among the people.
And when I closed with an “amen,” I could feel the heaviness shatter, as though the cloud had solidified into ice and was blasted into bits.
When the event was over, the residents thanked us warmly, seeming friendlier and less hostile than before. The kasetsu staff, who had been brusque all morning, appeared to warm up to our staff. One of my colleagues leaned over, incredulous, and said, “The staff used to be so mean, but they suddenly became friendly. I don’t know what happened.”
I know what happened. Prayer happened, and God’s Word was spoken, not harshly, but gently, in a way unchurched people might easily grasp. I believe that prayer and proclamation of the Word led to a spiritual breakthrough in this place, on this day.
Tape Face, however, was a holdout. She stormed off, seemingly angry at something she heard.
At the end of the event, the staff invited our team to come back and hold more events like this one. I would soon begin teaching tai chi at Hilltop kasetsu monthly. It would become my most consistent ministry during our two years in Ofunato.
Every time I’d come to teach, I’d prepare another message, building upon the last one. And every time, Tape Face would saunter in just in time to disrupt the message by talking loudly to other people in the room.
One of my coworkers suggested that Satan was sending her to disrupt our events. I countered, “Let’s not think of her that way. Maybe God is the One sending her here just in time to hear the message, because she never comes for the actual events. She’s only ever around for the messages. Maybe she’s the one who needs to hear them the most.”
Well, Tape Face would keep disrupting our events/tai chi classes/messages every month for at least a year. Like clockwork, she’d arrive right before it was time to share a message.
Then, one day, instead of interrupting, she groaned in agreement with something that was said, the way a Christian might while listening to a sermon.
The following month, it happened again. She would listen to the message intently and either groan or nod in agreement.
Was God breaking through to her?
