Pray in the Spirit at all times with all kinds of prayers, asking for everything you need. To do this you must always be ready and never give up. Always pray for all God’s people. Ephesians 6:18

God is at work among us! Since FREE JAPAN, the prayerwalking emphasis in March of this year, God is using other prayer events as well.

In May, the JEMA Prayer Commission sponsored their annual four-day prayer summit.

In August, the Gideon's sponsored a 10-day prayer emphasis for this nation.

Since July, Southern Baptist missionaries have been observing a day of prayer and fasting every Tuesday for the spiritual needs of this nation.

In January 2005, the fourth annual JEA prayer and fasting will take place in Tokyo.

Many of you have participated, or will participate, in these events. Thank you for being a part of God’s plan for this nation!

With all of this prayer for Japan, are we noticing any change? The answer is “yes”! The Passion of the Christ movie has been shown to one million resulting in the formation of new small group Bible studies. Seekers have opportunity to find answers to their questions about Jesus.

A change is taking place among church leaders, who after reading Rick Warren’s, The Purpose Driven Life, are expressing the desire to use these simple biblical principles with their congregations. One Japanese pastor of 40 years commented that these principles of discipleship are the best he has seen to date!

Individual lives are being transformed. Consider this sampling of testimonies:

A young Japanese, wanting to serve as a teacher in Indonesia, realized through prayer, during the delay of visa processing, that God wants her in Japan as a witness!

A young Christian salary man, wanting to participate in a mission trip to the Philippines asked his boss for five days off. The boss refused saying that if he took five days of vacation this summer it would only leave him seven days vacation for the remainder of the year. After prayer, the young man went back to his boss and asked one more time, this time telling the purpose of his trip. The non-Christian boss said, “By all means, GO.”

A young lady, wanting to use her gifting in art, realized her dream. The Lord has given her opportunities to do artwork for several Christian ministries. (Watch for her drawings of flowers from Israel on complimentary bookmarks given with purchase at a local Christian bookstore.)

With all of these answers to prayer, is there still a need to pray? The answer is an emphatic, “Yes!” Spiritual warfare is intensifying as the enemy loses ground. Let’s continue to pray for each other, and for all of God’s people. Let’s continue to meet together to pray. Let’s continue to prayerwalk this nation from shore to shore. What will be the results of even more persistent, powerful, passionate, and unified prayer? Could we perhaps see large numbers of Christians in Japan fasting and praying, in unity, every Tuesday for the salvation of the Japanese? Could we see a prayer website like http://www.freejapan.org/ redone to put more available resources together in one place, for God’s glory in reaching Japan for Christ? Could we see an event with hundreds (or shall we say thousands) of Christians across denominational lines coming together to pray? Could we perhaps see a national prayer center for Japan that has round the clock praying, seven days a week? Could we see cities, even the great mega-cities, transformed by His power? Could we see the nation of Japan one day soon being called a Christian nation? I believe we can because it is in God’s heart to do so.

God is leading us step by step until we accomplish all that He desires in this area of prayer focus. It’s time for the next step! Japan for Jesus!