Japan | The Slow But Unstoppable Work of God
Christian and Rie Manabe-Kim have served with Novo in Fukuoka, Japan for the past seven years, working to catalyze gospel movements in the country. Japan has a population of 125 million people, and only 0.3% are evangelical believers. The Kims have felt isolated in their context and struggled to see fruit from their efforts.
This year “The Makers,” a team within Novo exploring how creativity can unlock people and places for gospel movement, linked arms with Christian and Rie, meeting virtually over Zoom to discern God’s voice together twice a month. And what they heard was that there is a quiet but powerful movement emerging in Japan. Zechariah 4:10 says, “Do not despise the days of small beginnings.” Through pictures God gave members of the team and things they sensed him saying, they realized that small things take time and space to grow—and so do movements—so don’t despise what looks small!
Rie and Christian felt like their fruit in Japan was small, but they have been faithfully doing the groundwork in Japan for seven years—activating prayer, evangelism, discipleship—building a solid foundation, relationships, and modeling a contextual version of simple church. The Makers’ team leader Alice, who used to live in Japan, travelled there to pray in several places around Japan with Rie and Christian, and she immediately noticed significant spiritual fruit that Rie and Christian had overlooked or discounted. The Holy Spirit was at work—quietly, but consistently—and their prayers were being answered. God revealed to Christian that his movement in Japan was like lava from a volcano: After an eruption, lava takes time to flow down, but it will become unstoppable and transformative.
Christian and Rie have been praying for full-time teammates—a unified movement to pray, bless, and transform Japan. And in November, God brought together like-minded believers from different parts of Japan to dig into the Local Houses of Prayer model of blessing prayer alongside Rie and Christian. They’re all ready to lean in to this vision for Japan together! They've translated gospel movement materials, and trainings are already taking place. This team spread out around Japan is on the move equipping disciple-makers! The Kims are no longer isolated and alone.
The movement is here in Japan. It’s been years in the making—not just through the work of Christian and Rie but many other believers over many, many years, including several Novo staff like Alice who have made significant investments there (the Colliers, the Hederstedts, and the Gills). God's work is unstoppable, and the lava is beginning to flow!
