OMF has been evangelizing and church planting in Hokkaido since 1951. Over the years, around 40 churches have been established by OMF and these have joined together to form the Japan Evangelical Church Association. Most of them have already called their own Japanese pastors, leaving the missionaries free to move on into new unreached areas.
From the start, OMF has been working not only in the prefectural capital, Sapporo, with its 1.8 million inhabitants , but also in the other major cities and more isolated towns. Yet, scattered all across Hokkaido are smaller towns and villages that have no church at all; often the nearest church is at least an hour's drive away (or longer when the roads are covered with the snow and ice of Japan's long, cold winters).
Hokkaido is about the size of Switzerland and Denmark combined and is home to around 6 million people but still has only about 460 churches of any denomination. So, with only one church for around 13,000 people, there is still a great need for many more.