JAPAN
In April JCC added a two-year course for its graduates which will lead to a master’s degree in theol ogy- John Reid is currently repre senting the work in America while on a one-year furlough. No denomi nation underwrites the college. In stead, faculty and students trust God to supply operating expenses and capital investments through in formed Christians. A new two-story stucco dormi tory has just been erected. It was built with considerable exercise of faith on the part of each student and faculty member, resulting in the drama of answered prayer as bills came due. The college needed $35,000 for land and a building for an expan sion program. A down payment was paid in October 1956 and faculty, students and friends fell to their knees in prayer for money to pay off the balance. On the morning of December 20, $8,300 was to have been paid, but $1,600 were still lacking. At dawn a cable came from America advis ing of $900 in gifts. Still they were $700 short. At the zero horn: the owner came to report that the paper work was not completed and payment would have to be delayed five days. The following day a U. S. Air Force chaplain gave his personal car to the college as a donation. It sold for $900, exceeding the need by $200. On ano t he r o c c a s i o n exactly $2,800 arrived in the mail on the
Educational Evangelism
Tokyo suburb. The Winona Lake Christian Assembly added $5,000 to the new school’s needs, Wheaton College pledged $5,000 and the students of the Columbia Rible Col lege gave $8,800 for a dorm-dining hall. Journalist-missionary Don Hoke became the president of the newly- formed Japan Christian College (JCC), sharing responsibilities with John Reid, a TEAM missionary with a background in education. Today the college has 12 build ings valued at $160,000 and a stu dent body of 153 young Japanese men and women. They come from all four islands of Japan, from Okinawa and Formosa, recom mended by 30 mission boards and churches. A faculty of 20 Japanese and eight foreign professors teach es them, offering two programs: a four-year college course with a Bible and theology major leading to a B.A. degree, and a three-year Bible school course leading to a diploma.
F ive years ago three men, dedi cated to the task of evangelizing Japan, surveyed the growing pride of Japanese nationalism and drew up a plan they hoped would guar antee expansion of missions in the Land of the Rising Sun. These men, Fred Jarvis, Don Hoke and John Reid, recommended to their hoard, The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM), that they start an inter-mission college in Tokyo to train Japanese to be Christian leaders. TEAM agreed. In Roston at the famed Park Street Church, an elderly lady heard about the project and gave $5,000 — a substantial portion of her life savings — to help get it started. Her pastor, Dr. Harold J. Ockenga, was deeply moved by this sacrifice. He appealed to his con gregation to give double the amount of the widow’s mite. And they did. Fortified with $15,000, TEAM broke ground immediately and be gan building a dormitory-classroom building on a plot of ground in a
15
The King's Business/June 1958
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