It was the Christmas Eve service in Otsu, Japan. Frankly, it wasn’t much of a celebration. Thirty or forty people were crowded into the tiny room. Most of them were “unbelievers” who had come to “see what happens in a Christian church at Christmas.”

There was no enormous Christmas tree decorated with glass ornaments and lights. In fact, except for the slightly decorated Christmas cookies on the refreshment table, there were no decorations at all. There were no candles, no powerful organ music, no singing of familiar Christmas hymns. The people wouldn’t have known the words anyway. There wasn’t even a tiny nativity scene with figures of Mary and Joseph and the baby Christ Child.

I was terribly disappointed. I missed the beautiful big church I belonged to at home. I missed my family gathered around me. I missed Handel’s “Messiah” with its glorious “Hallelujah Chorus” and “Silent Night” and “Away in a Manger.”

I missed the Christmas pageant with the life sized Mary and Joseph and the live Baby Jesus. I missed the golden angel who sings “Oh, Holy Night” and my grandchildren in the cherub choir singing “Joy to the World.”

Most of all I missed the reading of the Christmas story from Luke. I know it by heart, of course. But I love to hear it over and over again. I supposed that Pastor Hamasaki was telling it in Japanese, but as there was no one to translate the Japanese into English for me, I was left in my isolation and loneliness.

“Help me, Jesus!” I cried in my heart. “I came here to serve You. I came here to tell these people about You, to help them find You. But it’s so hard. I’m so discouraged.”

“Look at my English student, Yumiko, over there,” I continued my talk with Jesus. “I’ve told her the gospel dozens of times. I’ve prayed that You would help her understand. I know Buddhism will not satisfy her heart. But she is afraid her parents will reject her if she becomes a Christian. Every time I talk to her about You a cloud comes over here mind. She can’t seem to understand.”

“Maybe I should just give up and go home,” I thought to myself. “I’ve tried my best but I haven’t accomplished much. I don’t even have anything to give Jesus as a special Christmas gift this year.”

Just then Pastor Hamasaki began to hand a candle to each person in the room. He was saying something about Jesus coming into the world to bring light into our darkness. Suddenly all the lights in the room were turned off. Everyone was excited and a little uneasy. They didn’t know what to expect.

In the front of the room Pastor Hamasaki lit his candle. A warm little glow lighted his face in the dark room. “This is how Jesus comes,” he said. “He brings light into our darkness and confusion. He comforts us and shows us how to live. He wants us to tell others who are living in darkness. He wants us to pass the light on.”

Now, Pastor Hamasaki started to light each candle on the first row. “Jesus came into the world to light your darkness,” he said. “Pass it on!” As each lighted candle ignited the one next to it light spread up and down the rows and the darkness fled. Soon the darkened room had thirty or forty tiny lights warming round Japanese faces and open Japanese hearts. I heard for the first time “Silent Night” sung in Japanese. I could feel God’s joy.

Yumiko rushed over to me. “Now I understand!” she exclaimed. “Jesus is the Light. He comes into our hearts to drive away darkness and depression. Now I understand! It is just like you said. Can I take these candles and Bible home with me? I want to do this for my parents. I’ve been telling them everything you told me but they couldn’t understand. I’m going to show them how Jesus lights up our darkness just like Pastor Hamasaki did. I’m going to do it tonight,” Yumiko called back as she hurried out the door.

Later, as I cleaned up the room and washed the teacups, I said, “Thank you, Jesus, for saving Yumiko. I so wanted her to have eternal life with You.”

“Thank you,” Jesus said to me. “Thank you for giving up your family and the comfort of your church at Christmas. Thank you for traveling all the way to Japan, for living in a strange place, for struggling with a strange language. Thank you for remaining faithful in your loneliness and discouragement. Your sacrifice has helped to produce the gift I like most for Christmas…the salvation of one precious soul for whom I died.”

Precious souls have been won to Jesus through ARM’s ministry in over 33 countries around the world. Through your gifts and prayers, dear partners, we are able to train national pastors in conferences and Bible schools. We support native evangelists and Bible women. We help start new churches, orphanages, and village outreaches. We support the families of pastors in prison for their faith. We help widows start small businesses. We distribute Bibles, Jesus films and tracts. We write and publish training materials in several languages. We do anything and everything we can to help people find Jesus Christ, the only Light who can light up their darkness.

Your partners and proxies in world mission to the
ends of the earth and the end of time,

Dr. Art and Nancy Vincent

P.S. Will you help us bring the Light to those who are lost in darkness? Your sacrificial gift will keep us and hundreds of native evangelists going with the Light of Life into the dark places of the earth. Thank you for your faithfulness.

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