He also met his wife, Rie, while in college. They were married in 1988, with David Keita being added to their family in 1991 and Grace Marie born in 1998. Rie is interested in all kinds of handicrafts, including basket weaving, embossing, flower arranging and stencil work. David Keita enjoys playing with friends at his school, the Christian Academy in Japan and Grace enjoys just about everything. In college, I linked up with a Japanese-American church pastored by Koichi Hirano in Santa Barbara.
Idolatry is a systemic problem here.
Combined with this is distaste for religion in general which arose out of its use to control the people both during the times of the Shogun and during the war. The key to these problems is prayer and a clear presentation of Jesus. This has been our focus, and the results have been nine congregations in nine years. The way that we plant churches is simply to go find a new empty vessel and preach the Gospel. It sounds very simple, and it is, but it requires tremendous prayer.