July 1, 2002
Texans minister at World Cup venue in Japan
___By Jenny Rogers
___International Mission Board
___YOKOHAMA, Japan--A team of Texas Baptists traveled to Japan for a close-up look at World Cup action and a chance to share their Christian faith with sports enthusiasts from around the world.
___"These volunteers have brought more contacts than we can possibly follow up on," said Tokyo missionary Buddy Brents. "Wow. They have done awesome things."
___Volunteers from Plymouth Park Baptist Church in Irving, along with several from Kansas, Tennessee and other parts of Texas, worked alongside International Mission Board missionaries like Brents to prayerwalk, help out with Christian festivals and distribute 10,000 evangelistic soccer tracts during the World Cup.
___With three big games in the Shin-Yokohama stadium, Japan's largest soccer stadium, and thousands of international visitors, volunteers found normally reticent Japanese ready to talk--about soccer, life and faith.
___Yokohama missionary Victor Morrison was moved by a conversation he overheard between team members and a Japanese woman named Atsuko.
___"I came up to the table (where they were talking) and saw her crying," Morrison said. "She was saying: 'Tonight I revealed my inner self. It was so freeing. Normally I don't reveal how I feel. I am a Japanese woman in my 40s, and I have many knots. But tonight they came loose.'"
___Morrison believes American volunteers can loosen the soil and help jump-start outreach.
___"It's like Japan is a big, parched field, and we're all lighting little fires," he said. "What we're waiting for is for God to make all these little fires into one big fire, and whoosh!"
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