Missionary Encounter

Here's a blurb I wrote for the church website about the sermon I will be giving next Sunday. I thought I would post it here, because it is a story from my time in Japan. There are some related posts over at my blog (http://felixruina.com/daily):

Sometimes the practice of being a missionary is different from the image that we've built up in our minds.

Early on during my time in Japan, I was invited by one of the members of the church to take a driving tour through some of the nearby mountain trails. Sato-san, the man who invited me, spoke basically no English, and my Japanese was...minimal at best at that time. So, I wasn't too surprised when Sato-san picked me up with another young man in the car. The young man (probably in his mid-30s) spoke a little English—broken and staggering, but between my broken and staggering Japanese and his broken and staggering English, we were able to understand each other.

As the tour started, the young man mostly served as a translator between Sato-san and me. “He say this mountain...biggest mountain in Tohoku.” “Ah, I see. Very interesting,” I would respond, and he would dutifully translate back to Sato-san, “ああ、おもしろいです。”

Pretty soon, though, Sato-san began saying things that my translator companion had difficulty interpreting. Clearly Sato-san was using words that were not generally taught in high school English class. After some stumbling and jumbling, I figured out that Sato-san was trying to tell me the story of his faith journey—about how he became a Christian. It was interesting to hear, but I wondered a bit why he was telling this story to me...especially since I had already heard his story at the church.

Soon, Sato-san's intentions became clear to me. Jin-san, my translator, was not a Christian. He had never been to church. Sato-san knew him from work, and had asked him to come along to help translate. Chances to tell one's conversion story in detail rarely occur in Japanese society. Everything is very formal at the workplace, and it's just not acceptable water-cooler conversation. But now, Sato-san had a captive audience in Jin-san. Jin-san had to listen to the story, because he was responsible for translating it to me. Here I was, with my fancy Master of Divinity degree and several months of missionary training, and my job in this particular missionary encounter was to just be present, to listen, to provide a reason for Jin-san to listen.

I did not really think anything would come of Sato-san's ingenious plan. But, to my surprise, the following week Jin-san appeared at the church following the service. He was there to practice his English some more. Apparently he had enjoyed our little trip. I never saw Jin-san become a Christian. But, when I left Japan, he was still coming to the church once or twice a month to practice his English.

Sometimes the best thing we can do to be a missionary of the Gospel is just to be present.

In the sermon this coming Sunday, we will be looking at the nature of Christian missions—what it means to be a missionary, and what missions work really entails. Because, as I learned from Sato-san and Jin-san, sometimes we are the best missionaries when God is using us in a way we were not expecting.

I'll be posting the sermon up on my writing website sometime after Sunday: http://bdwhite.com/sermons