I am sitting here at a desk in my comfortable guest room at Christ for the Nations Japan. As I search my thoughts and emotions about this beloved land and Missions in general, I have just realized this year marks my family’s 100^th year anniversary serving the Lord in this country.

It started in the Taiso Period with my grandfather L.W. Coote, who came to Kobe as a businessman but was saved in 1911 as a result of a living with a resident missionary. He soon quit the business world and began living by faith pioneering the gospel here until the Lord called him home in 1969. The Lord used him, among others , to introduce the fullness of the Holy Spirit in Japan. Today Ikoma Bible College and many churches continue the ministry the Holy Spirit birthed through him.

Fast forward to today and now 100 years later there are thousands of Bible School graduates from both IBC in Ikoma and IBC in the USA that have served and died here and in many other nations as missionaries, heeding the call of Christ to take this Gospel to every hamlet of the world. We never know what the ramifications of one life dedicated to Christ will produce.

Our time in Japan started when Gloria and I moved here in 1982, having been invited to work with the Nihon Pentecostal Kyodan that my grandfather started. Along with a great team of co-workers, we planted a church in Tenri and several others in Nara Ken area. In 1995 we moved to Montana to finish raising our children and start a Church Mission base in Helena. Two years ago, two of my four children moved back to Japan as missionaries to continue the work in Nara. Then this July, as if by accident, we realized we were all here together again, sixteen years later almost to the day we left, serving the Lord. This was an unplanned yet significant appointment…our family’s 100^th year anniversary! Coupled with the unprecedented disaster from the earth quake in March, and its corresponding unprecedented open door into the hearts of Japanese, it seems to be a prophetic moment for us, where we can see the hand of destiny.

Often as Christians we see the Great Commission along with God’s other commands as burdens instead of blessings. Once pursued, we find them to be great doorways to blessings. All of His commands are not only for the benefit of God and His kingdom, but also for our own personal enrichment and fulfillment. Embracing the Great Commission is one of the greatest venues of blessings God has for us in the Christian life. The richest life is the life that is in the yoke shoulder to shoulder with the Lord in His harvest fields. That is where you are privileged to be closest to Him and is where you can feel his heartbeat the best.

So what has Missions meant to us as a family? It has galvanized our hearts as a family together for the King and His Kingdom. It has allowed us to have the same goals, convictions, and desires. It has given us an International family from many nations, and allowed us to experience a relationship with Christ in other God designed and ordained cultures, releasing us from some of the inadequacies of our own. We have found it to be the venue to know the love of God in a richer way where we too are filled with the fullness of God. This mission has given my family a rich and full life. Participating in world evangelism has also allowed us to tap into the warehouse of God’s provision. It has proved to us that there is some type of supernatural blessing of provision that comes when we focus on His whole harvest field, and not just our little area of ministry. We have learned my grandfather’s slogan to be true, “Fukano wa chosen to naru” and I have learned “The best is yet to come”

This year is a prophetic moment for our family, and I believe this is a prophetic moment for Japan. It is harvest time in Japan. On March 11^th, one wave washed away the lives of 28,000 precious people in Tohoku. Just a few months ago 400,000 now homeless people were pursuing possessions and things, a normal lifestyle. One wave has made those possessions and roots to the past a huge pile of refuse and debris to be hauled away. The devastation on the coast is overwhelming, even several months after the disaster. The Japanese people have methodically begun clean up measures but there is a hush of despair in the air. They say the next threat of danger is a mass movement toward suicide. In the Kobe earthquake of 1995 for six thousand four hundred and one people died in the earthquake and THIRTY THOUSAND died afterward of suicide!!! We pray this will not be the case here…Keep on praying for Japan. What remains is a ten kilometer wide and four hundred kilometer long open door of opportunity for a Mission in the Tohoku region.

My family has come back privileged to be part of the start of an International School of Missions here at Christ for the Nations in Hokkaido. It is the cooperative effort of five ministries from four nations that have joined together to do what we cannot do alone… establish an International School of Missions to train up last day harvesters for the Lord’s fields. Why Hokkaido? We are just a few hours from historically closed countries to the Gospel. It is a strategic geographical location perfect for a training ground and launching pad for workers for the last frontiers of Missions. It is interesting that three of our families in the school of Missions are from Fukushima area. What is God doing?

To get here to Hokkaido Gloria and I drove up from Nara. We spent half a day driving through Ishi no Maki feeling and sensing the loss of the people there. We then had to drive our vehicle through the wreckage of Sendai to get onto the ferry for Hokkaido. Our fourteen hour trip sailed us up the coast along the devastation of the quake and tsunami, where the lives of so many had been washed to sea.

Every once in a while I realize I am experiencing a once in a lifetime moment. This was one of those moments. As we sailed past one could still see plastic household items floating in the sea. I did not take that moment lightly. These were almost sacred waters because they are where so many had lost all. This moment is a wakeup call to reach the living with the Gospel. It is an unprecedented opportunity for the Christian to rush in with the Gospel of hope and make a difference for eternity in the lives of the living.

Mixed Emotions

Dear Friends,

It has already been a powerfully mixed up emotional time here in Japan. For the 1^st time in 16 years, almost to the day, my whole family is back together again as missionaries, and we have brought our sheaves with us. All day Saturday and Sunday we spent laughing, sharing, and praying together with our Japanese brothers and sisters from the past and new ones that Bethany and John have led to Christ.

Then just as quickly, Monday our hearts broke because duty was sending our family in different directions. Bethany and John staying in Nara, Will, Autumn, Joseph and the grandkids flying to Hokkaido, and Gloria and I driving 700 kilometers to the devastated tsunami area of Ishinomaki. Let me try to describe this…

One day full of love, life, and family, the next full of debris, despair, and dissolution. On March 11^th, one wave washed away the lives of 28,000 of like precious people we had spent the day before with. Here, Gloria and I stood and stand where just a few months ago 400,000 people were pursuing life and possessions and things, and now it is all a huge pile of nauseating refuse, an eyesore, in the way, worse than worthless. Whole sections of neighborhoods are gone, factories, and warehouses… what remains is a testament to the emptiness of things and possessions, and even life against the power of just one wave.

Almost in defiance of the carnage, Gloria and I drove our vehicle through the wreckage onto a ferry and sailed toward the epicenter of the quake, where the lives of so many had been washed to sea. It is the only way to get to Hokkaido by car, where we are to continue our next leg of the journey.

But I do not want to take lightly this surreal moment as we sail past so many who have lost all. I want to feel their pain, and somehow some way be used by you dear Lord, to make a difference for eternity in the lives of these that are lost…yet living.

In Jesus name…