It has been nearly 3 weeks since I concluded my mission trip in Osaka and am back in Singapore with a refreshed mindset of work and relationships. I have been crafting this post for awhile, but words could not formed out of my mouth and so I had been putting this post aside to await for inspiration. Currently, I am still recovering from my post-flu where heavy phlegm is present in my throat and therefore has rendered me unable to drink cold beverages or sing. Without further ado, let’s commence with the post about my second mission trip experience!

I was away from Singapore between 3 to 12 December, flying away from my comfortable, humid home into the land of the rising sun and the start of the winter in Osaka, Japan. This was my second mission trip after my first mission trip to Chiang Rai, Thailand in May, and my first mission trip with my church. This mission trip experience would be slightly different from my first mission trip to Chiang Rai because I am currently working and am able to support myself in the trip with some experience of doing a mission trip. Also, I was fortunate that someone in my church was willing to sponsor me in the trip through fund-raising, meaning that my time and effort could be spent on logistics and preparation of my heart and posture for the tasks in the mission trip.

In this reflection, I will cover the following:

1. Why I decided to go on a mission trip to Osaka?
2. Christianity in Japan
3. The programs that took place in the mission trip
4. My expectations versus the outcome
5. Final reflection

Why I decided to go on a mission trip to Osaka?

In February 2024, during one of my church services, the church announced that they were opening slots for four different mission trips. One of which was Osaka, Japan. I chose to do another mission trip at that time because I was uncertain of my choice to go on a trip to Chiang Rai. I perhaps chose to do a mission trip to Osaka because I wanted to reassure my parents that I was going on a legitimate mission trip under the wings of my church. I was not interested in other mission trips offered by my church because I had already been planning to go to Thailand for my first mission trip. On top of that, I was very curious about life of a Christian in Japan because I rarely seen or heard about life of a Japanese Christian.

“Do Christianity persists in Japan where the country is predominantly following Shintoism?” was what I asked myself when I was sitting down and looking at the presentation slide flashing the four different mission trips. In fact, according to 2021 statistics, around 48.6% of Japanese population participate in Shinto practices, followed by Buddhism which consist of around 46% of the population. Most Japanese practice both religions and thus the total percentage population of religions practiced in Japan may exceed 100%.

Having to be curious about Japan and Christianity altogether led me to immediately signed up the mission trip to Osaka. Without further ado, let’s go to the history behind Christianity in Japan.

Christianity in Japan

I always hold a strong belief that one must understand a country’s culture pertaining to religion or customs before embarking on a mission trip. This is because not everyone may have similar beliefs or expectations when it comes to understanding what permeates into the culture of one’s country especially in Japan, where the longstanding history shapes the country and the people. Unlike some countries, the history of Christianity in Japan is one of the fascinating histories I ever came across and I am surprised that this was never truly shared by anyone.

The earliest missionary activity in Japan was dated back to 1549 when Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima to begin his missionary activities. He was a Catholic missionary who was sent as a representative of Portuguese Empire, leading the first mission to Japan. It was said that Xavier’s activities were a bumpy ride, for he struggled to learn Japanese language and his approach to evangelical poverty did not appeal to the people in Japan compared to the success he received in Europe and India. Xavier was said to have brought some paintings into Japan in hope to teach the Japanese about Christianity. Another milestone that led to Xavier having some success in converting people in Japan, was the fact that he relied on some people he met in Japan to help with the interpretation and translation of Japanese language. In 1551, Xavier left Japan.

During this period, Japan contained the largest number of Christians outside Europe by the end of the 16th century. Christians were allowed to proselytise Christianity because of the support from a daimyo (feudal lord), Nobunaga Oda who was keen to consolidate his power against his opponents as well as to acquire warfare from the Portuguese. Similarly, Christians borrowed Nobunaga’s help to waged wars against their opponents – Buddhists. However, this period came to a close after the death of Nobunaga and the rise to power of another daimyo, Hideyoshi Toyotomi.

In 1587, Toyotomi ordered the prohibition of Christian missionary activities because of his suspicion of foreign power. Missionaries were also ordered to leave Japan. This period was marked as a brutal persecution of Christianity, with most of the Christians forcing to abandon their faith on the surface and become Buddhists. Christians during this period practiced their faith in secrecy. The prohibition of Christian activities were further exacerbated after the death of Toyotomi when Tokugawa Ieyasu assumed power and issued the Anti-Christian Decree in 1612. Most persecuted Christians were sent away to either Macau or The Philippines. Any Christians in Japan who secretly practiced their faith during this period were also known as hidden Christians.

The removal of the ban of Christianity in Japan occurred in 1873 under the Meiji Restoration due to the pressure from Western nations regarding the persecution of the Christians. The number of Christians in Japan was said to have dwindled to about 30,000. Furthermore, it was found that the religion practiced by the hidden Christians was very different from what was brought by Xavier in 1549. Many hidden Christians rejected the churches’ doctrines, not wanting to forsake the teachings taught by their forefathers which were passed down without the direction of the padres or on paper but word of mouth. Attributing to the suppression of Christianity in Japan and the isolation policies, today, approximately 1-2% of Japanese population declared Christianity as their religion.

Current traditional Japanese religions and practices are tied to the country’s national identity and the rapid shift to urbanisation leads to Japan being a secular country. With this information in mind, it sets up for what to know about the mission trip to Osaka and how this actually shaped the programs my team conducted and the interaction with the locals during the mission trip.

The programs conducted in the mission trip

Unlike my first mission trip to Chiang Rai which is based on indirect evangelism, I found that the mission trip to Osaka is more towards relational-building, focusing on building trust with the people and praying for awakening in people to one day come to know the truth – who God is. We conducted the following main programs in the mission trip:

1. English Class at Mission House
2. Winter Children English Program
3. Community English Class
4. Sharing testimonies at various churches

English Class at Mission House

This program was one of our first programs that happened on Day 2 of the mission trip, a day after my team and I arrived in Sakai. I was not involved in this segment, but mainly this English class focused on teaching topics related to healthy lifestyle and active living. There were at least three Japanese in this class and we had four members from our team teaching and actively participating in conversation with them to practice English. There was one activity in the English Class where everyone had to do a workout by following the ActiveSG workout video on YouTube. It was intense to the point that most of the Japanese had to take out their inner jacket because they were perspiring, and they enjoyed the workout.

During this program, I was spending time with other members in my team to prepare the logistics for the Winter Children English Program. This includes recapping the lessons that we were going to teach the children, the acting rehearsal of the nativity skit and last minute details to the slides and props.

Winter Children English Program (3 days)

On the same day as the English Class conducted in the mission house, we travelled to a community centre in the afternoon, located in the downtown area of Sakai for the Winter Children English Program. According to the missionary, the community centre in the downtown area was chosen as the venue instead of the one nearer to the mission house because of her residential address. Unlike in Singapore where you can book any facilities in any community centres on a centralised government-own platform, facilities can only be booked in an assigned community centre based on the provided residential address. The missionary then went on to tell us that the program registered in the community centre is named as nihongo club. This is the name that we used to address ourselves in order to confirm the booking of the venue and the collection of the tech stuff like HDMI and projector.

When we first arrived at the the venue, it was a tatami room (和室). No tables, no chairs, so everything have to be set up on our own. We had to use a makeshift tea table to place the projector and my laptop to be projected onto the screen. Moreover, we had to ensure the venue setup is deemed safe because the participants were children aged between 6-10 and also we needed some space for the games and dance. This venue was used for two days and on the third day, we had to change venue because another group was using the tatami room. We used a classroom instead.

I found this program to be a slight challenge for me because it was my first time teaching English to participants who were children and English is not their first language. I tried my best to use Google Translate to interact with the children, only to realise they cannot read the Japanese words due to their age, so I adapted to another method which was to read out the Japanese words via the Hepburn romanisation. To my surprise, the children were able to understand what I was trying to say, but here comes another problem – I do not know what they were saying. Thankfully, I told them to write out what they wanted to say and I could use the Google Translate to do a live interpretation of translating Japanese into English. I found that this method was helpful because the children were able to learn English faster and they could relate with the topics like family, school, body parts, etc through rote memorisation.

I personally found that this program reminded me of how much pureness and goodness the children are because they are still learning about the world. I felt every single bone in me, just feeling like the children needed to be protected. It reminds me of how much Jesus loves children and He invites them to come to Him and to trust Him faithfully (Mark 10:13-16 NIV).

¹³ People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

All in all, I felt joyful and a sense of place, a belonging when I mingled with the children despite language barrier. I felt compelled to teach them properly and truly hope that they did enjoyed the Winter Children English Program. Not to forget – the nativity skit which tells about the birth of Jesus, a reminder of why Christians hold this very significantly especially in the festive season leading up to Christmas and not just a holiday celebration.

Community English Class

On Day 5 of the mission trip, a day after the conclusion of the Winter Children English Program, we travelled to two venues for the Community English Class – the same venue as the Winter Children English Program and another venue that was outside of Sakai. The first venue was conducted in two classrooms concurrently – one class filled with adults and another class filled with mainly elderly. Regardless of which class the participants are in, they went through the same lesson as the one conducted in English Class at the Mission House. Impressively, their command of English was good and they were able to understand and learn the difficult words in the lesson.

After concluding the two classes, the team and I had lunch before embarking on the journey to the next venue where the missionary told us that the participants’ command of English is on the basic level. The lesson conducted in this class was about countable and uncountable nouns. This lesson was one of the interesting ones that we conducted for English teaching, perhaps because this topic about countable and uncountable nouns is something that we, native speakers of English, tend to never think about. It leaned towards partnering up in a group to learn the nouns and how to form a sentence, followed by playing a game where you gained points for the recognising countable or uncountable nouns.

One such funny incident was when we were asked to sort out countable and uncountable nouns and one of the cards was “money”. I thought it was categorised under countable, but it turned out to be uncountable. The reason being that we cannot count money individually, rather you can only count if there is a monetary unit assigned to it. For example, “I have five pesos.” There is no unit of measurement when we just focused on the word “money”. While it was a learning experience for the Japanese I partnered with and so does another Japanese who is also in the group, it was also a lesson to me that I should not take my command of English for granted just because I could use English with ease.

Sharing testimonies at various churches

I left this section to the last because this is one of the major things that a mission trip must have in order to share with people about life, challenges, struggles and hope pertaining to Christ. Testimony is an anecdote of one’s encounter with something and a testament of something that changes you. That something for Christians is actually about God and how He had play a significant role in our lives over time as we grow. There were three churches my team and I had to share our testimonies:

1. Osaka International Church
2. Sakai Mission Church (our missionary’s own church)
3. Homeless Ministry Church

For me, I was assigned to share my testimony to the group in Osaka International Church. This is because of the age group and the community consisting of expats or people who have come from other country, hoping to make a living in Osaka, Japan.

I shared a testimony about my anxiety and how I struggled in fully coming into conviction that Christ’s power is mighty, that my worries and my needs could be addressed if I fully trust and believe in Him. I shared about my life in primary and secondary school, how my paranoia and overthinking bad habit started in polytechnic, and how I came to fully enter into Christianity during my university days. I also gave thanks to God for sustaining throughout my life and for the life I am living including being able to work in a place that has given me purpose to use my skills and knowledge wisely.

My testimony was also translated into Japanese, and amazingly – my style of writing was captured very beautifully in the language. You can view the Japanese translation of my testimony here.

Other than testimonies, there were other activities that took place in the church ministries. At the same church that I shared my testimony, we had our team leader who gave a sermon about the birth of Jesus which was intentionally paired with the nativity skit. We participated in the winter festival at the missionary’s church where we did the same skit, followed by a sermon conducted by one of our team members about defeating giants (giants referring to obstacles in life) and distributing Singapore food and snacks. The preparation of the food and snacks was not an easy feat. My team members have to packed certain ingredients like pandan and kaya jam to bring over to Osaka because they could not be found in Japan and they were essential to the flavour of the food and snacks.

At the homeless ministry, my team and I were invited to do an altar call. Altar call is a time of prayer and response after a sermon. It calls to encourage people to repent from the heart and genuinely commit their lives to Christ. Being invited to do an altar call was a first time experience for me because I often take the backseat at church to observe people coming forward to respond. Instead, this point of view was shifted to me being in an active role to look out for people to wish to respond and genuinely change and commit their lives to Christ.

During the altar call, an elderly walked up to me to be prayed for. Without being prompted, I initiated on my own and prayed for him based on the nudging from the Holy Spirit that I relied on for wisdom and discernment. I prayed for him before the church pastor-translator came forward to clarify with the elderly on what he wanted to be prayed for. All was good because I learnt from the translation that he wanted to be prayed for good health. This experience profoundly touched me because again, this was my first time doing an altar call. I was not expecting anyone to approach me for prayer. It showed me that age doesn’t matter when it comes to doing an altar call, but rather put yourself into the heart of generosity to know, to listen and to help others to bring one step closer to heart of Christ. It also showed me that in the season of thanksgiving and festivity, that we must remember the ones who may be marginalised or may not have the comfort from home or family. In short, I felt emotional and stirred in my heart after the first-hand encounter with the homeless ministry.

My expectations versus outcome

Again, it is hard to put in words about my experience in Osaka because it went beyond what I thought I knew about mission trip. Though I had my first experience in May this year, I think I had been challenged by God to go beyond head knowledge and to instead immerse into the common lives of many Japanese where most of them may not know about Christianity or who our God was. I learnt that through humility, that God provides and I should not be worried about what had to come during the mission trip especially with the change of schedule or routine. As the youngest in this mission trip to Osaka and perhaps still a growing Christian with limited experience with dealing with relations, I can see that this mission trip is a learning curve for me to step up my game and not be afraid of the unknown.

I must say and admit that the mission trip to Osaka, though it is a challenging experience in terms of coming to terms with faith and wrestling with it through working through unknowns, it brought me lots of joy to meet new people and having the opportunity to sit down and teach the Japanese some things about Singapore, church and English. I understand that it can be a struggle for the locals as Japanese is their predominant language, and it can also be a struggle for us, Singaporeans where we also had to learn to undo our knowledge of the “Singapore way” and adopt a new hat to fully have relations with the locals. This “Singapore way” is where we, ourselves, having the language proficiency of English as a native speaker, often try to push our teaching in a manner that somehow only works in Singapore and as such, it is possible that our teaching style may either scare the locals (especially the children) or there is no feedback to understand if what we are doing is truly right. Thankfully, over the course of the programs and through observation, we managed to change how we approach the locals and were able to match the conduct of the lessons and programs to what they were familiar with. I am thankful that the Japanese were very patient with us especially when they made the time to come out of their routine and spent the day with us in church programs.

Another main theme that occurred during my early part of the mission trip in Osaka is spiritual dryness. Thinking along the line of how Jesus was tested in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11 NIV), I thought about how He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and that strong will to hold His fort against any obstacles getting in His way. This narrative provided in the Gospel of Matthew tided me through what I saw was the work of other forces that do not align with God’s will or the God I know. This was also known as spiritual warfare. It can happened any time and anywhere, but usually heard of in mission trip because we are out of our comfort zone, going into lands that we are not familiar with and therefore in confusion, we tend to be more soul-searching for reasons or purpose in our existence in the place we are planted in. Forces at work are typically unseen. Their aim is to disorient you to doubt God and His goodness. His purpose, plan and power get superseded when we start to shatter in our system and belief.

To counter this spiritual warfare is to go back to the words of God’s truth, going back to the steady foundation built on His goodness and remember what He had went through, for He intends to prosper you and not harm you (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV – see the quote below). So I did, I went back to reading the bible I had on my phone as well as the physical bible I brought to the mission trip and spent the time dwelling in quietness and reflection, writing out questions and easing my anxiety over what I perceived as spiritual dryness. In turn, I felt it helped me to alleviate my worries and raised my awareness of my wellbeing. If you ever felt overwhelmed and wondered where is God in midst of sufferings, hurts and pains, I asked that you turned to the bible and look for verses like Jeremiah 1:11-12 NIV, Jeremiah 1:7-8 NIV, Ezekiel 37:7-10 ESV, 1 Peter 4:19 NLT, 2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV, Galatians 6:9 NIV, John 14:1-4 ESV, John 6:44 NIV, 2 Corinthians 7:8 NKJV…

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Final reflection

The mission trip to Osaka, Japan was another eye-opener experience where I challenged myself beyond the norms and went beyond what I do in my everyday lives. It was the first time I witnessed what is known as spiritual dryness and how my doubts can be overcome by the glorious deeds of God’s goodness and His presence in mysterious ways where we choose to see and believe. I have a lot to processed through after my trip and I do not think my journey of growing in faith stops here. Instead, I am more prompted to figure out what I wanted to do for my life as a Christian and how curious I am about mission work (I have signed up for a course conducted by Trinity Theological College about Issues in Christian Mission, happening every Wednesday from 8 January to 26 February 2025, 7.30pm).

My aim of the post about my mission trip experience in Osaka, Japan is to show that things are sometimes not as sunny or optimistic as they seemed, but rather through lenses of realism and reliance on discernment can you find joy in the sufferings and experiences you go through. I went to Osaka with a mindset of thinking I know it all, only to come back with a question in mind of what I truly want to do and what is exactly a mission.

My hope for the year 2025 is discover this purpose and create a space, an honour to my identity of who I am, and therefore create a balance in my own journey in my own time and control. I hope this post is enriching, just as much as how I was in the mission trip and being part of someone else’s journey to better know who Christ is in the midst of change.