Urgent need of a full time teacher of Japanese as a Foreign Language.

God is wonderfully answering the earnest prayers of many years for new workers for Japan. With projected numbers of new arrivals surely we can look forward in faith to see a great movement of God in this country which has traditionally been so resistant to the gospel. The excitement and wonder is, however, tinged with apprehension for the OMF Language and Orientation Coordinators (Pete and Janet Dallman) and Language Advisor (Miriam Davis) at the Japanese Language Centre in Sapporo. We are already bursting at the seams with 22 students (7 non OMF) and 12 Japanese teachers in October 2009. 5-6 of these are likely to move from language study into ministry in the next year. But with the possibility of 15 new OMF workers arriving in 2010 overall numbers could increase dramatically. Most classes are one to one for a variety of reasons. One extra student means 15 extra teacher hours per week. At present we have 2 full time teachers and 10 part time. Several of the latter are restricted in either the number of days a week or hours per day they can work. One may have to stop work in spring 2010 due to family needs. Even now, producing a weekly timetable is like tackling an extremely challenging jigsaw puzzle in which some of the pieces just don’t seem to fit. We therefore, urgently need one more full time teacher who can work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, by spring 2010 at the latest. The big question is how to look for such a person. One or two promising possibilities are now disappointingly unlikely to come to anything. A full time teacher ideally needs to be a Christian, to have a qualification and experience in teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language, a sense of calling to teach missionaries and some English speaking ability. It is unlikely that we will find such a candidate locally so we plan to advertise country-wide through one of the Japanese Christian newspapers. It may be there are other ways of creatively advertising that we have not yet thought of.

Will you pray for creative ideas of making our need known to the Japanese Christian world, for preparing adverts, and for the processing of potential candidates?