Kazuo in Japan

Kazuo was raised in a traditional, nominally Buddhist Japanese family. Just like many other Japanese families they kept a Buddhist altar in their living room where they offered periodic prayers and sacrifices to their departed ancestors. Kazuo’s father passed away when he was in his first year of high school, leaving his mother to raise him and his younger brother. She worked very hard and paid for him to attend law school at a large university in Tokyo.

While in university, Kazuo heard about Jesus for the first time through the outreach of a local church. He had many questions because of his Buddhist background. His concept of life did not include God but focused more on doing things through his own power and ability. When Kazuo heard about creation he began to think about the possibility of God’s existence. He was dissatisfied with the idea of evolution and Buddhism gave him no clear anchor for understanding his existence and the existence of things around him. He began to read the Bible, as well as books about creationism, and shortly thereafter God revealed himself to Kazuo.

Kazuo’s mother was upset when he became a Christian, but she tolerated it and even allowed him to remove the Buddhist altar from their house. He continued to grow in the Lord and within a year felt called into full-time ministry. This news was too much for his mother to accept and she rejected him as her son for a number of years. Even so, Kazuo has been able to be a great witness to his mother, his younger brother, his aunts and uncles, and friends he grew up with.

Currently Kazuo and his wife are planting a church in his hometown in a building that his mother owns. She actually offered it free of rent so that he could plant a church there.

- from a foreign Christian worker in Japan