In Bolivia there are 20,000 Japanese descendants. The largest group of these are 7,000 in Riberalta. The next largest is 1,300 in Trinidad.. Most cities such as Okinawa, San Juan and Santa Cruz have about 850. Thus Riberalta has the highest concentration of descendants in a fairly small town of about 140,000 people.
It turns out that this is also a very evangelical city. Almost 30 - 40% of the people in Riberalta claim to be Evangelical.... I met 3 Japanese descendants that were one of the 60 or so pastors in this town...But with all of these pastors they or none of the other pastors we met had any Japanese descendants in their congregations. This is interesting because the descendants are much more intermarried than in other locations. They also do not speak the language and do not seem to have much of the cultural heritage of Japan. So the interesting question is why then are the Nikkei not in the churches.
The pastors were open to discuss this. They also seem to work well between denominations and they are very open to having training in evangelism, discipleship and parenting. We also discussed trying to do training events that would be an outreach to their community with seminars on parenting, managing drug and alcohol abuse problems within the family, prostitution and young adult delinquency.
There is a great need, but there are pastors that are open to focusing on the people group of Japanese descendants. We met with the President of the cultural center and they are open to participating in these community events as well as a cultural teaching on the Code of Values that is very prominent in the Lima Nikkei Community.
We have several Japanese (English) students ending the school year and several have completed their English level to enter school this coming August. (These are Japanese children that are in Peru with their parents work and they only have an option of going to school in English.)
We have a series of Business Seminar coming up in June.
Please pray for all of the people that God is bringing our way.
Pray that they would see and understand God's mercy and love.
Pray for the opportunity to share in Bolivia.
Pray that the Christian Nikkei in Peru would have a burden for their people.
A key praise. God used a lot of people to help me in the research trip to Bolivia. There was a church that opened its doors to me in Trinidad and was very helpful. There were misisonaries in Santa Cruz that gave me some invaluable advice and help. My moto taxi driver when I arrived in Bolivia was a believer and he drove me around the next day to find the churches. In all of the 10 churches I found on Saturday, the Nikkei pastor, Jhonny Tokudome, was home with his family. God led me to meet many key people in this community.... Please see many of their pictures in this letter..
I also met Pastor Absalon Rojas Kado on Saturday... I had several key meetings with Pastor Absalon and Jhonny on Monday and Tuesday... They were very open and interested in trying to reach the Nikkei....
Thanks for your prayers. God worked in many key ways to make this trip very beneficial and to reveal Himself in a mighty way.
Some of the Key Contacts:
Key pastors:
++Jorge Llanos, Union Christian Evangelical Church
***Absalon Rojas Kado, Friends of God Evangelical Church (Nikkei)
++Demetrio Chipunavi , Assemby of God, Betania Church
Ministry of Oasis Church
Assembly of God, Hecker (Pastors son Uziel Juari Alvarez)
***Johnny Tokudome,
Hebron Church (Nikkei)
Maranatha Evangelical Church
Assembly of God, Mount Zion
(Miguel Angel Gomez, Pastor)
Juan Pedro Fuglister, Evangelical Swiss Mission
Tuesday: Pastor
Angel Higa, Iglesia Emanuel (Nikkei)
President of Cultural Center: Dr Walter Mendez Tateishi (Nikkei)
Please continue to Pray.... God is at work...
Thank you for your prayers.... Tim and Joy
