An online conversation between Ellen Liljekvist, VMC Missions Admin. Asst., and Chuck & Jan Burwell, VMC Missionaries to Japan.
Ellen: As you enter your final year in the mission field of Japan, I'm sure there is time of reflection. How did God call you to be a missionary? And then to Japan?
Chuck & Jan:
We both felt drawn to missions when we participated in a Sunday school class at VMC about missions. Then we went on a two-week medical mission to Jamaica a year later, 1986, and hosted our first Japanese home-stay student that same year. The next year we hosted two more Japanese students, and we felt a bonding with them as well as a burden for how lost the Japanese people were.
Ellen: How have you seen God move in the lives of the Japanese people? Do you have an example?
Chuck & Jan:
We have seen God free Japanese people from bondage to idolatry and ancestor worship, and to free them from fear of people when they trust in the Lord. But it is usually a long-term process. Often when we see people show an interest in the gospel it is because they have been going through some pain or trauma in their lives. If they join an English class or the gospel choir they will slowly learn the gospel truths as we do Bible studies together. And we will see God answer prayers in their lives, especially to free them from depression, or fear of people, anorexia and substance abuse, etc. Then when they truly trust in the Lord we see a peace of mind and joy come to them that is not a normal part of the Japanese life.
One example is Megumi Shikimi and her son, Yuhei. Megumi heard about Christianity and the Lighthouse church through another lady in the church, Sachie Igarashi, who is a co-worder at the same parcel post delivery company where Megumi works. Mrs. Shikimi was distraught because her son was dropping out of Jr. High school and withdrawing from society. This is a widespread problem in Japan with over one million young people dropping out of school and locking themselves in their rooms for six months to even years. Mrs. Igarashi told her that the church had helped her and her boys to get out of their depression. So Mrs. Shikimi visited the church, and she has been coming faithfully for almost two years now. Her son also came with her to church. We prayed with him and talked with him, and he returned to school. Mrs. Shikimi believed the gospel about six months later and is now in preparation for baptism. Yuhei comes to church faithfully but has not yet put his trust in the Lord.
Ellen: What lessons have you learned from God, serving Him in the mission field?
Chuck:
It would take a book to answer this question! But here are a few of the lessons:
1) Don't give up too soon. Especially in Japan it takes a long time to get the language, understand the culture, to be accepted into the group and for the gospel to penetrate the hearts of the Japanese. Many missionaries don't see a lot of fruit until their third terms, which was also the case for us.
2) Don't ever think you have things figured out about your own culture or the culture of the people you are trying to reach with the gospel. It is a life-long learning process.
3) God is more loving, patient and forgiving than we can imagine. God is always faithful. Every time we have become overwhelmed or frustrated or ready to give up, God lifts us up and gets us through, usually through the prayers of our prayer partners.
4) God is like a multi-faceted diamond and reveals Himself through every culture in many different ways. We can learn so much more about God and get so much closer to Him by seeing Him through another culture and language.
5) We need to grow spiritually all our lives. If we stop growing, we go backwards. Growth requires change, change requires loss of something and loss requires pain. Thus the old adage, "no pain, no gain" is usually true in our spiritual walk. We thought we came to Japan for the sake of the Japanese, but God wanted to change us as much as He wanted to change the Japanese.
6) Don't take life too seriously. Have some fun each week. Enjoy the process of life. Don't just live for the accomplishment of goals or for the next success. If you don't pray, laugh, rest and have fun, you won't last in the mission field.
7) Don't become a workaholic in ministry at the expense of your family. It is spirtual adultery to neglect your family by overdoing it at ministry.
8) I Corinthians 13 is probably the most important chapter in the Bible. If you don't have love, you are just a noisy gong, and your work, sacrifice and gifting is worth nothing.
9) I Thessalonians 5:16-18...These are probably the next most important verses. They have to be applied daily in the mission field - "Be joyful always, pray unceasingly and give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
10) We have learned over and over that people watch us constantly no matter where we are...especially since we "stick out" so much from the Japanese around us. We are known all over the city and they know we are Christians. That means you really DO have to walk the walk every minute of your life. We are so aware here that we truly are ambassadors of Christ, and we certainly don't want to blemish His reputation.
11) Cultures vary a lot from country to country, along with the values, beliefs and customs. We have learned that all cultures have biblical facets and all cultures have sinful, non-biblical facets to them. No country or culture is 100% biblical. But we also learned that people everywhere are the same. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus in all cultures. Marriage and parenting offer the same challenges in all cultures. All people have fears and all people need love and companionship. All people need the Lord.
Ellen: What is your advice to us as we reach out to our neighborhoods and city?
Churck & Jan:
Learn their "culture," i.e. their world view and compliment the positives in their lives. Build bridges by doing acts of love and kindness first rather than judging their lifestyles. Keep patriotism, politics, political parties and hot button issues out of your conversations as much as possible at first. The important thing is to be Jesus and preach Jesus. We have found that people can criticize Christians and Christianity fairly easily, but they can't easily criticize Jesus and what He did.
The most important thing, no matter where you are in the world, is to first build a relationship with your neighbors, co-workers, etc. around you. Help them to see that you are someone they can trust. Be genuine and let them know you truly care for them, that you're not just out to "chalk one more soul up" on your number of salvations' belt.
Ellen: What matters most to each of you?
Chuck:
Glorifying God by knowing Jesus more deeply and strengthening my relationship with Him. After that, the most important thing is loving my wife, loving my children and their families.
Jan:
I want to also glorify God above anything else. I want my relationship with Him to continually be growing and vital. The next most important thing is that I would serve and love my husband, children, their spouses and their children more than myself.
Ellen: As a missionary, can you discuss your reliance on God financially?
Chuck:
It was hard at first to rely on God for finances instead of just going out and earning it like I used to as an engineer. But as Paul wrote to Timothy and the Corinthians, we are earning our wages by sharing the gospel and shepherding God's people. But we don't have a guaranteed income. We have four supporting churches and over 50 individuals who contribute to our support, and God has used them to keep us in Japan. We are always preaching to the Japanese about how God will supply all their needs so we have to be the example and model to them of how we can entrust our lives to God, and He will provide.
Jan:
For me, relying on God totally for all our financial needs is a very humbling, and sometimes very faith-stretching experience. After being employed in the secular world for twelve years of our marriage, it was difficult to then have to go in front of people and ask if they will now take on the role of supporting a family of four. It is humbling the most when you see people you know, who are struggling financially to support their own families, and yet they continue to honor God by supporting us. We have never taken this huge aspect of being a missionary for granted, and we also thank God for every church and individual who He has led to support us so that we can stay in Japan.
Ellen: Do you see your final year in Japan as a wrapping up, or completion of work? Or is it a beginning? Why?
Chuck:
Our current church plant is in the final stage of the church plant cycle, and we call this stage "withdrawing" or "indigenization." It is where the missionaries pass the baton over to the national leaders and then withdraw their influence. Kind of like John the Baptist did once Jesus started His ministry. But there is still work to be done by missionaries in that church plant to help the church become financially self-supporting. Some new, younger missionaries will continue teaching English classes at the church, to help do evangelism and to help riase funds for the church. But once the church grows a bit more it wil have sufficient income without the help of English classes.
So we are wrapping up our current stage of the process, but we hope to continue the relationship with the church in Ube City, Japan, as well as other churches in Japan by recruiting and sending more missionaries, helping lead short-term teams to Japan and mentoring or training missionaries, as well as having Japanese come for home-stays in Christian homes in California.
2010 will be a new beginning for us as we re-locate to the USA and work more on mobilizing and training missionaries. The biggest challenge for me will be pulling away from the front lines of evangelism in Japan. We love the people and want to see them all accept the Lord as Savior, but we cannot do it in our own power. We have to entrust them to God. So along with missionary mobilzation, we will also be looking into evangelism ministries we can do in the USA, especially reaching out to foreigners and international students in our new location.
For Jan, it's a new beginning in that she will be closer to family, and she may be seeking a new role in the States as God opens those doors. I will go from English teacher, missionary and all that involves, into some completely different role. Moving back is also a faith-stretching walk, because we have not lived in America for more than one-year at a time in 18 years! The American culture has changed, and I often feel like a fish out of water in America, as well as Japan!
Ellen: How can we pray for Japan?
Chuck & Jan:
There are so many prayer needs for Japan. Japan is literally a dying and shrinking society. There is so much depression and hopelessness there that marriage rates and birth rates are plummeting, and divorce rates and suicide rates continue to increase. Pray for God to open the eyes of the Japanese to understand and believe the gospel, to be bold in their witness and to not fear man. Pray also for Japanese leaders. The number of pastors is decreasing, and 50% of pastors are 65 and over. Only 1 in 25 pastors is under the age of 40. Many churches are without pastors. Pray for more missionaries to go to Japan. Pray for unity and boldness of the believers in each church and for churches to work together for the glory of God.
Ellen: How can we pray for you?
Chuck & Jan:
1) Pray for the new missionaries joing our team (Theresa and Colby Weinhofer) to progress well in language study and to have a smooth transition later on into English teaching.
2) Pray for many of our English students and many of the gospel choir members to put their trust in the Lord this year, and to grow, mature and be baptized.
3) Pray for the Lighthouse church to grow in numbers and spirtual maturity and to not only be financially self-supporting, but to be helping start daughter churches.
4) Pray for us to know exactly what the Lord wants us to do from 2010 and that He would supply our housing and income needs as we transition back to California.
Ellen: What do you look back at and wish you hadn't missed?
Chuck:
I feel we experienced so much more in ministry in Japan than we missed in the USA over the years. There are many positives about raising a family overseas and being exposed to multiple cultures. But it was hard not seeing our moms and siblings more over the years, and now we miss seeing our kids and grandson while we are in Japan.
Jan:
I would say that the holidays were the most difficult times for me, especially after our children left for college. I especially miss being there when our kids get hurt or sick, or to share a special achievement or accomplishment with them.
Ellen: Please talke about the importance of relationships with others. Friendship is key in reaching others, isn't it?
Chuck & Jan:
Conversions in Japan do not usually take place without first having a relationship, so we seek to build relationships with many folks. Between neighbors, English students, choir members and seekers in church, we probably are building relationships with over 50 non-believers at any one time. Most of them are good friends. Japanese really regard relationships as a key to doing any kind of business or joining a group.
But the keys are still prayer and God's Word. Prayer is essential, as it prepares us to share boldly and correctly, and it also opens up the hearts of the hearer. God's Word does not come back void, and it can pierce hearts even when our delivery is less than perfect and we are meeting someone for the first time. In other words, the better the relationship, the more favorable the listener is to receiving our testimony, but I always keep telling myself that when I share the Words of the Lord, it is power and I should have faith that it will work in their hearts.
Ellen: Living Missionally...it's so important to our church body...what's that look like to you, practically speaking?
Chuck & Jan:
We think it means keeping in mind that the only reason the Lord has not come back for us yet is that our work is not complete. And our work is to get the gospel out to every person, of every race, tribe, culture and religion so that more will believe and that the Lord will be worshipped by more and more people and receive more glory. The church exists for mission. We are to gather together to worship the Lord and encourage and spur one another on to good deeds, which includes ministering to the lost and giving them the good news.
In practical terms, it means that my life plan, yearly plan and weekly plan should have some part of it dedicated to building relationships with a target-group of non-believers with the goal of sharing the gospel or bringing them to a Christian event or Bible study. Another part of our personal plan should be the support of one or more missionaries and praying for missions each day.
We have supported and prayed for missionaries since the first year we came to the Lord, and we feel that should be the norm for all believers.
Ellen: If you could only describe your missional experience in one word, what would that be? (Each of you)
Chuck:
"Stretching" - The missionary life has streched my personal faith to go way beyond what I thought it could. It has stretched me physically, emotionally, financially and especially spiritually. As Romans 5 and James 1 emphasize, stretching (suffering) produces perseverance; perseverance produces character; character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because God pours His love into our hearts.
Jan:
"Trust" - Sometimes the only thing that has kept me going here is to trust God that He is faithful and good. I often have to look back through our past and see how God has worked through and in so many different situations and has always brought us through them. I have to trust God that He always is looking out for my best interests and knows what the best is, especially when I think it is something different!
Thank you to Chuck and Jan for taking time out of their busy schedules! They were able to focus on this at a conference in Thailand. We are blessed to gain insght and learn from their experience in the field, and I would hope that each of us would capture what God has for us as we make an impact in our own communities, and gain a bigger heart for world missions. Who knows - maybe someday, we'll become missionaries like Chuck and Jan. In the meantime, let's join together and commit to pray for the Burwells and all VMC Missionaries. Praise God for His continued "stretching" of us all, and may we continue to "trust" Him fully.
