We are Shelby and Daniel Culwell, we have 3 children: Easton is 6, Barrett 5, and Lily 1.

Quite honestly, we had no idea what to expect going to Japan, we knew that we would be helping start a church but other than that we didn’t know what it would look like for us and what kind of things we would be doing.

We certainly had no idea how much we would grow to love Hope Alive and the people we work with and minister to this much.

So, what has our ministry looked like over the past 3 years? Well it’s safe to say we don’t have 1 specific roll.

When you think of missionaries you may have this idea of families standing out in the city passing out tracts, preaching the gospel to everyone they meet, doing Bible Studies, and spending time in prayer. While there are times that we are out promoting events and do Bible studies, our regular weekly tasks may not look like what you envision missionaries doing.

I graduated from Welch with a Youth Ministry and Business Degree. I also have a set of skills I acquired growing up in construction. This allows me to be very versatile on the mission field. I may be planning a youth lesson to teach on Sunday, taking care of the Hope Alive finances, cleaning the church, or even be doing a remodel project down the road.

Shelby has a visual communications degree from a state university which equips her to take care of all the promotional stuff, website, flyers, digital media, & running the slides and production. She also has previous experience working at a school that equips her to teach the toddlers class on Sundays. The point of us sharing these very specific things is to show you that our skills don’t look like what many other missionaries may look like. Music, art, construction, business, teaching, sports, cooking, outdoors…the list goes on and on. WE CAN USE YOUR SKILL IN JAPAN.

In 2009 I went to Japan to see what missionary life is all about and to help as much as possible for the few weeks I was there. Little did I know the impact that that trip would have on my life. As you know my family and I have lived there for over 2 and half years and helped start Hope Alive. Hope Alive is recruiting people to experience the same thing I did 12 years ago. Some of our outreach looks very different than what a typical American church would consider outreach. In Japan we have to reach a people that don’t know what a church is, who don’t know who Jesus is. Japan is mostly Buddhist and Shinto. Christianity is as foreign to them as those Asian religions are to us. How would you respond to a Buddhist if they asked you to consider their religion instead of the Christianity you grew up around and living? There’s a good chance you wouldn’t hear them out.

A typical Japanese person wouldn’t see a church on the corner and “just go to church.” We have to go to them where they are. We have to build relationships first and gain trust. Here’s a few examples. Music meetup invites anyone who is musically skilled to join up at Hope Alive to enjoy a jam session, The Ketteman family uses this outreach to build relationships & they even practice a worship song that some will perform in church the following Sunday! This is generally the first encounter many of these musicians have with a church and the hope of Christ.

We lead the English Party outreach and started a Computer/Hobby Time. One thing that always happens when we meet someone new is they always ask what our hobby is. We use this cultural norm to reach many different people groups. We invite anyone to come and share their hobbies with others and enjoy English conversation, this is for adults and kids. Every week we have new people walk into the door of a church for the VERY FIRST TIME. Each outreach event also ends in a formal invitation to church on Sunday.

Why does Japan Need Missionaries?

Watch this 5 min video and share with others the need to spread the gospel in Japan.

After the war the Emperor made a humanity declaration basically stating that he is not a god. It was Japanese belief that the Emperor was god and the generations after carried that divine legacy. This was an open door for missionaries, people flooded Japan after the war to help rebuild and many of them came with the Gospel. A Japanese friend of mine told me that she can remember the war as a child hiding up in the mountains where her dad would leave her and her family as they would hunt for food, she can vividly remember eating snakes just trying to survive. A lot of older people that walk into churches experienced the love of a Christian long ago as they were helping rebuild the cities. These people have been broken since the war and they are searching for truth. The god they served is no longer a god. They are confused and so rooted in tradition that most them don’t believe anything at all.

Back in college we used to get printed Newsletters from missionaries and recently while Shelby was cleaning out our storage room she found one from January 2011. It was from Donnie and Ruth McDonald they have served in Japan for 38 years and they currently serve as the field leaders. In this letter they had a lot of news about their ministry, and they had a strong burden on their hearts for the people of Japan. They were praying for a change. This is a quote directly from that newsletter: “What is it going to take for the Holy Spirit to sweep across this land?  When will we see Christ glorified in Japan by more than just a few?”

Just 2 months later in March of 2011 the Great East Japan earthquake and 50 foot tall Tsunami shook the lives of Japanese people. Many of you may remember seeing this on the news. It took the lives of nearly 20,000 people many of which have never been found. This was an event that shook Japan. This is the open door. Any Japanese person over the age of 13 has a memory of the tragic event that happened 10 years ago. After it happened, missionaries flooded the area for relief and construction ministries.

We visited Sendai Japan, it’s the area that was hit the strongest. There’s something different about there, you can feel the deep respect that those people have for foreigners.

We met a lady and spoke with her, just some friendly talk about who we are and why we were visiting, she mostly showed interest in our children, but when we left she bowed to us, but this wasn’t a normal bow. Long bows beyond 45 degrees are only used to show deep respect, this lady was touching her toes and she stayed that way until we were completely out of her sight. You could tell that she was affected in some way by a Christian.

We were deeply moved by her and it reminded us how our regular daily encounters may not mean much to us but can have deep impacts on those we come in contact with.

The aftermath of March 2011 just two months after the McDonalds newsletter, has left the Japanese people with a sense of confusion and vulnerability.

Many evangelical groups report a new openness among the Japanese people. And to say that we’ve seen this openness doesn’t even scrape the surface of what we’ve personally seen. People are walking into churches, people are raising their hands accepting Christ, people are BEING BAPTIZED.

Hope Alive has seen an average of 60 people a Sunday even through the pandemic God has brought new people into Hope Alive almost every week.

Just in October we saw 96 people at our Fall Festival. God is so good. 

The Holy Spirit IS sweeping across this land and we are seeing Christ glorified in Japan by more than just a few!

We cannot tell you how many times we have prayed big bold prayers and HE DELIVERED! Sometimes we put God in a box and we ask him open ended prayers instead of praying “help us get to back Japan” we should pray “Lord help us return to Japan before August 2022.” We know that if it’s just us working that it’s going to be nearly impossible for us to return before a year. This is a measurable prayer you can say WOW, no doubt God did that! 

During the first year of our church launch our team was already trying to navigate space with only one floor, maybe the size of this stage, we were cramming 50 + people in this tiny area.

We were praying for the Lord to provide another space specifically for our children’s ministry, Praise God because miraculously the first floor came available!

We didn’t have the money or know how we were going to rent this floor. But we stepped out in faith and knew the Lord would provide. We began fundraising for a renovation as well as praying for working hands. Then was time for the construction. The first floor used to be a hair salon so we had to make a complete renovation of the space. All hands were on deck, even the kids. We worked day and night to get it done before the Hubbard’s had to leave for their stateside assignment. It was completed and God has provided.

The things we do for God should be outside of our own abilities. I read an article that said the things that we do should be evidence that we are depending on Him and trusting in His supernatural ability to do the impossible. We need to be willing to attempt things big enough that unless God steps in, we are sure to fail. You don’t have to go to Japan but you can send workers to Japan.

This is the open door. Can you Go? Can you send? Can you pray? Can you do all three?

Japan is a beautiful country and a wonderful life changing experience if you ever go just to visit, God will place a burden in your heart for these people, a burden that won’t leave you alone.