by David Harris as told to Barbara Tucker

A well-known book on world missions states that the two most directly opposite cultures in the world are the United States and Japan. Anything that is true of American society is probably going to be exactly not true in Japan. Food, buildings, sizes, religion, views of tradition and family and relationships, language—almost everything is different.

David Harris and his wife, Jenny, fifteen-year veteran missionaries in Aomori, Japan, have learned to adjust and now treasure those differences, although they often make evangelism seem almost impossible. But if David has learned anything as a Christian and as a missionary, it’s that nothing is impossible for God when the Christian desires and lives in God’s will. As David says, “What the Lord has done to get us here has been nothing short of a miracle.”

It could be said that the miracle started for David in the sixth grade. Raised in a committed Christian home with a dad who was a career Marine and a mom who worked in Christian schools, he regularly heard the gospel. To assuage his feelings of conviction, he depended on the memories of making a profession and being baptized at age nine. But one day he realized he couldn’t lean on that story any longer. With the help of the church’s pastor after a school chapel service in North Carolina, David prayed to accept Christ. He immediately experienced the peace and freedom from fear he’d been missing—and has had ever since, except for a time of wrestling over missions in Japan during his senior year in college. After a series of circumstances that others would call coincidences and unplanned, but that David knows were part of God’s leading, he gave in.

“On several occasions I went forward in chapel services. God showed me that ‘I’ was the one who had been trying to find God’s will for ‘my’ life. I had taken control and was trying to find it on my own. My problem was that ‘I’ was in the way. I went forward that day, knelt at the altar, and began to pray. ‘Lord, I am tired of the struggle! I will go anywhere and do anything you want me to do!’ I had no sooner said that, but a thought came to my mind. It was one word—‘Japan’!”

“Japan” didn’t go away. In fact, the President of Trinity Baptist College (Jacksonville, Florida), Charles Davis, saw David praying during that service and called him to the platform to testify to what God had done in his heart. He would also soon have to face Jenny, his fiancée—fearing that it might mean the end of their engagement.

Jenny took it with the grace of a woman who long before had agreed with God about His plans for her. She had accepted Christ at seven through the ministry of a strong church and loving Christian parents. She was finishing her degree in elementary education at Trinity. Dating David since her high school years meant lots of prayer about following the Lord’s will for their lives.

When David said, “Jenny, the Lord has called me to go to Japan. If you do not feel this is the Lord’s will for you, maybe we need to break our engagement!” Jenny did not hesitate even one second. She said, “Oh! I knew we were going to Japan!” The Lord had spoken to her three years earlier in the same missions conference where He had first spoken to David about missions and Japan.

Secure in the knowledge that Japan would be their home and ministry, after graduation David and Jenny applied to BIMI, embarked on deputation—visiting 195 churches in two years and two months—and were able to land in Japan in August of 1988. This was not, however, David’s first time in Japan. That happened during a survey trip in December of 1984, when he stayed with BIMI missionary Dave Carter and connected with veteran missionaries Jim Norton and Dan Roberts. As David explains, “My first impressions of Japan were taken from the eyes of one who now knew this was the place of God’s leading. I was not a tourist. I was looking at the place where I would, in the near future, be living and working. I was excited and thrilled with everything I saw. I soaked in each moment and saw a people who needed the Lord.” The trip only solidified David’s convictions about Japan after wrestling with God for so long.

With such firm faith in God’s leading, arriving in Japan in 1988 was a challenging but heartening transition. “We began language school after arriving in Osaka. The expense was too great for both of us to attend the school. Jenny had a tutor who was the daughter of a BIMI missionary. After our formal language study, we learned more by putting ourselves in the ministry; Jenny began teaching Sunday School and I began preaching.”

Jenny adds, “We were overwhelmed with the language at first. Japan is such a modern country that culture shock was not a real problem. A few minor customs had to be adjusted to: removing shoes before entering a house, raw fish, bowing, gift-giving as an obligation for things done for you. All of our children have adjusted well as this is all they know.”

The Harrises are raising three daughters: Jannah (September 22, 1987), Juliana (December 28, 1989), and Jessica (October 4, 1992). Homeschooling has been a natural choice for them, but this school year Jenny has joined with two other families needing educational help. The three families began Grace Christian Academy.

The Harrises are church planters, and they started their first work with the help of missionary Tim Sisk. To accomplish this goal, they utilize a variety of means to reach their fellow residents of Aomori: adult’s and children’s Sunday School, discipleship classes, English/Bible classes, soul-winning, tract distribution, youth meetings, and church services. About discipleship, David says, “We teach the Japanese families whenever they can meet. Recently a good many foreigners are attending our church. We are using a video Bible Institute that is done in English. There are currently four in that class, meeting once a week.”

As anyone familiar with missions in Japan knows, however, the work can be slow. David explains, “As missionaries, the feeling of not being able to effectively reach into the hearts of people has been the hardest adjustment for us. The Japanese are very kind and cordial. They are curious and interested in us as foreigners, but when it comes to the Gospel, there is a barrier that seems impossible to overcome. At the moment of decision for Christ is where the division comes. The Japanese are quite religious and would be more than willing to accept Jesus if they could add Him to their god shelf. ‘What would one more god hurt?’ is a statement I have heard some make. When faced with the gospel of Jesus Christ, they become quite indignant. ‘How dare you bring your God to our country and say that He is the only way!’ It can be quite interesting.”

Spiritual hardness in a country encased in centuries of false ideologies and proud of its traditions—this is the reality of ministry in Japan. But David and Jenny also find loneliness and separation from Americans very difficult. It is rare to find Christians of like faith and practice. “Until last year, the only other Independent Baptist missionary in the area was forty miles away from us. We began praying that God would lead others into this area. Since then, the Lord has blessed with a family who came in March, 2001.” Jenny also mentions the weather as a discouragement. “We average about 25 feet of snowfall every winter. Normal getting around is a bit tiresome.”

In surveying their ministry, David and Jenny focus on a few areas of prayer. Of course, they are conscious that their daughters are growing and Jannah will be leaving for college in the U.S. in three years. They are also mindful of the tight quarters their church and school are using: 700 square feet. The Japanese church members are giving and praying for a larger facility. And the fact of their loneliness and separation also makes them constantly aware of how unevangelized Japan is—especially their region of Northern Japan.

In all, though, the Harrises are delighted with Japan. David explains, “Japan is home to all of us. It is a safe and clean country, but the thing I like the best is being in the will of God and having a place to serve the Lord. That makes any place feel like the best place in the world.”