In the early ‘90s, a series of amazing circumstances, which could only have been pulled together by God, led to the establishment of OMF Japan’s Headquarters and Guest Home in Chiba.
In 1991, Rev. Tadashi Haga, the pastor who was chair of OMF Japan’s Home Council, invited OMF missionary Warren Payne, from New Zealand, to preach at The Chapel of Adoration. Though Warren had never heard of this church, he agreed to preach there. A few days later he got a phone call from Mrs. Ukiya, a woman he didn’t know, asking if he would also officiate a wedding at the same church, in the afternoon, following his message.
Six weeks before the wedding, Warren met with the engaged couple and the elderly Mrs. Ukiya at the church. During the meeting he learned that it was built on land owned by Mrs. Ukiya. The land had been in the family for many generations and she lived there with her daughter, Asae.
The Ukiya family
In 1965 Mrs. Ukiya lost her 23-year-old son, Tojiro, in a race car driving accident. He’d died during a practice session while trying to avoid two pedestrians who’d strayed onto the track. Ten years later, her husband, a prominent local land developer, passed away from pneumonia. Three months after that, the family home burned down in a fire.
During the fire, she found herself crying out to the God she had first met as a child—“In my head the Lord Jesus and God, whose existence I had only thought of vaguely, now became completely one. And from that time I became a believer, fearing the true, living, prayer-answering God.” Her daughter Asae was already a Christian—she had encountered Jesus while studying art in New York in the early ’60s.
The Chapel of Adoration
From that time Mrs. Ukiya became an evangelist. She and her daughter reached out to people in Ichikawa and also the car racing community. They rebuilt their home and started a church. In 1979, they built the current church building at one end of the property, they called it The Chapel of Adoration.
When Warren met the Mrs. Ukiya in 1991, the church had no pastor and had been trying to gain religious registration with the Japanese government. This would have enabled the church to own their building—if Mrs. Ukiya died while still owning the land the church was built on, the high inheritance tax would likely have meant the church would lose the building.
Praying for land
Unbeknown to Mrs. Ukiya, when she first met Warren OMF Japan had been praying for a couple of years about establishing a new Japan headquarters in the Kanto area. The OMF Japan centre was, at that time, in a small building in Sapporo, Hokkaido. OMF missionaries had agreed at a recent field conference that God appeared to be leading them towards moving their headquarters to Tokyo (at that time one of the most expensive cities in the world). OMF was looking for a property with good access to both main airports, as well as sufficient land to build a guest home, offices for the Japan Home Council and field leadership, and a meeting place for at least 100 people. From a human perspective finding such a property seemed financially impossible.
The Holy Spirit moves
The week before Warren was to preach at The Chapel, Rev. Michiharu Shinya was the preacher. That week, the names of Warren and his wife Doreen appeared in an announcement in the church bulletin. In 1943, during WW2, Rev. Shinya had come to faith at a prisoner-of-war camp in New Zealand through Bible studies led by camp chaplain (padre), Rev. Hessell Troughton. Hessell had been a missionary in Japan from 1933 to 1939 and he was Doreen’s father! Rev. Shinya had been baptised by Rev. Troughton and recognised Hessell’s daughter Doreen’s name in the bulletin. Rev. Shinya made a last-minute decision to change his sermon that day. He shared his testimony with the church and provided a wonderful introduction to the church for the Paynes.
When Warren preached the next week, the Spirit of God moved powerfully in the church and 25 people, including Mrs. Ukiya, rededicated their lives to the Lord at the end of the service. The following morning Mrs. Ukiya called Warren, to tell him that she and the church leaders had decided to talk to OMF about the idea of donating some land to OMF. Before calling Warren, they consulted Rev. Koichi Otawa, Asian Director of Inter-Varsity Fellowship, who had also “happened” to attend the service the morning that Warren had preached. Rev. Otawa was an old family friend of the Ukiyas and familiar with OMF.
In yet another amazing “coincidence,” God provided a Christian estate agent, Mr. Sato, who had worked with OMF in the past, and, it turned out, had already been advising Mrs. Ukiya for some years. The complicated legal transfer took a few years, but in the end OMF was able to receive this gift of land free of tax. This enormous gift was, probably, the largest in value in OMF International’s history (though not in actual monetary transfer).
New OMF Buildings
On September 27, 1999, the OMF Japan Headquarters building and Ichikawa Guest Home were dedicated to the Lord. God’s provision was also clearly seen in the construction of the buildings. The outer shell was built by a local construction company who had been delayed in a major university project, and so agreed to OMF’s low budget to keep their sub-contractors in work during a time of economic constraint. The interior was completed with the help of 47 Christian volunteers from nine different countries.
Conclusion
The presence of God’s hand is all over this amazing story. This land and the buildings that stand on it are testament to answered prayers. In all this we give the praise and the glory to the Lord for all he has provided.
By Wendy Marshall
