Don and Carol Love

CMA Canada

 

I had heard of missions work from my childhood through meeting missionaries in church. I always found them friendly and fascinating. I don’t know that I saw myself in that role.

 

When I graduated from high school, in St. Albert, Alberta, I really didn’t know for sure what to do next. I was interested in medicine but not certain about that and I didn’t have money for University. So I began to look for work and finally found work in train stations for Canadian National Railways. My work took me to some very isolated places. In those months of loneliness I found that it was reading the Bible that helped me with my feelings and my thoughts. I began to feel a desire to teach the Bible to others. This led me to a decision to go to Canadian Bible College and become a pastor.

 

After my freshman year I spent one year in the Philippines doing campus ministries under the Philippine Student Alliance Lay Movement, an outreach of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Churches of the Philippines (CAMACOP). The Filipino friends I made and the experiences I had had a huge impact on my faith, my approach to life and my ministry. I am so grateful for that year. Coming home to Canada, however, I did not know that missions would be my future, just that missions was important.

 

After graduating from Bible College I became a youth pastor in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. My first months were very difficult but over time I began to really enjoy what I was doing. I also began a relationship with Carol and we were eventually engaged. It was during this time that my life was rather shaken up. We had a missions conference in our church and the messages really moved me. I did not think that it meant a change for me though. One morning, I was working in my office when I had what I can only explain as a strong thought. In a very clear statement I thought, “If you quit this church, they will be able to replace you in one month.” I was surprised that I thought that, and I reflected that this was probably true. It struck me as a little humorous. About an hour later, I had another very strong thought. “There are places in the world where, when a pastor quits, there is no one to take there place.” I was surprised at where my thoughts were going. I thought, “Yes, that is true and sad,” but beyond that I didn’t think anything anything of it. Then, sometime later I had a third “thought.” This time, however, it came with a really powerful sense. “You are doing someone else’s job.” I knew that I was supposed to be going to some place in the world where there are not enough pastors.

 

I talked with Carol about this and told her that I believed that this meant I should become a missionary. She happily agreed to move that way. A few months later we were married and then we moved to Regina to study for missions at seminary. We still didn’t know where we were headed. It is too detailed to explain but step by step we were led to consider Asia. I began to feel a deep desire to go to a Buddhist nation. However, Japan did not come up until very late. In fact, it was after our final interview to become missionaries, about 10 months before we were to set out, that we received a phone call. Our mission leader said that the Japan field was asking for a missionary and asked if we would consider it, though there wasn’t much time to decide. It actually took only a few minutes to decide. Even though the idea was new to us, we knew that Japan had many of the needs that had been part of our being directed to missions. Making the decision brought us a lot of peace.

 

Our steps to mission involved education and ministry training in Canada. All along the way, we would write to church and mission leaders to let them know where we were, what we were doing and what we were thinking. Then we would ask advice about what we should do next. After we were doing that, we would write again about the next step. It really was a step-by-step process and an important part of that was to continually seek advice. We also had to keep encouraging each other because sometimes one would be confident and the other unsure, but it often switched. It was important that we make those decisions together and be patient with each other.

 

After language study, I was assistant to a Japanese pastor in Narita, Chiba prefecture for two years.

 

I later served as acting pastor of Sayama Alliance Church, a church plant in the suburbs of Tokyo, for 8 years (2 terms). The past 6 months have been focused on leading the church through the transition to leadership by the Japan Alliance Church with a Japanese pastor.

Community outreach and service through English teaching

Children’s ministry, youth ministry.

Weekly preaching (in Japanese), worship planning and leading

Leading Bible studies and prayer meetings, counselling

 

At the same time I have started a small group Bible study in the downtown core of Tokyo which has developed into a small worship time leading to becoming a new church.

 

I have also been involved in Field Leadership:

 

Carol has been doing music and children’s ministries in both Narita church and Sayama church. She also does community outreach/service through English teaching, neighbourhood friendships, etc., Youth ministries, leading Bible studies, and a girls’ club. She has been the Mission bookkeeper as well as Financial advisor for Taiwan and Mongolia fields and is now the Regional Financial Assistant for Asia Region of C&MA Canada.

 

As we return to Japan in 2007, we would like to put most of our time into church planting efforts in parts of Tokyo where opportunities open up. We hope to continue to work on the ministry team in Harumi, downtown Tokyo, helping in growth and development, particularly encouraging the group to be outward-oriented toward starting new groups. We want to focus on opportunities to open up new groups through the work of the Harumi believers, through contacts of other churches and through contacts made in other outreach efforts. We would also like to continue to work in a ministry team, wherever possible. We would like to envision several growing networks of house churches that have the potential to continue expanding yet freedom to develop into a variety of church models.