Taiwan Church News

3299 Edition

May 18 - 24, 2015

Church Ministry

The Retired Japanese Christian Couple Called To Serve Taiwan With Scripture-Reading, Sharing God's Love And Prayers

Reported by Hwang Yi-lek

Every three months in turn, a couple of retired Japanese Christians, MrShimada Isao and Mrs Shimada Hideko, called by an overseas ministry of their Makuya's Christ Church, would come to Hwa-lien to serve Taiwanese with scripture reading and prayers. Many Taiwanese Christians, across different denominations, felt greatly inspired after attending the assembly led by the Shimada couple.

Rev. Lin Hsi-hau, Director of Hua-lien College Student Center, remarked"Though the Christian ratio in Japan is much more less than Taiwan, there are still God's workers willing to offer their time and energy to become missionaries in Taiwan". Taking as the example the missionary enthusiasm of the Shimada couple, Rev. Lin encouraged the youth in the church stand up to serve the church without fear in kinds of ministry.

The Makuya's Christ Church, to which Mr Shimada Isao and Mrs Shimada Hidekobelonged, is an independent church movement and not accepted by Japan's mainstream churches. Mr Kitajima Tooru, who had came to Taiwan for 12 years and in charge of Taiwan's branches of Makuya's Christ Church, pointed out that Makuya's Christ Church had a global network among the states like Israel, US, Canada, Mexico, Brasil, Paraguay, Indonesia, Taiwan and etc. And their typical meeting are mainly focused on reading scriptures or spiritual articles of "The Light of Life" magazine, which is an official church monthly printing with 300,000 copies circulated.

Rev. Lin reminded PCT members still have to weigh the messages received fromattending other denomination's assembly. "But, through the help of pre-apostolic style scripture-reading from Mr. Shimada Isao and Mrs Shimada Hideko, it's time to think how PCT could explore our Pine Tree(the aged) ministry by utilizing our good human resources of those retired senior brothers and sisters in high quality and sufficient numbers", said Rev. Lin.

Translated by Peter Wolfe