Who are we?
We are Jeff and Malia Walker, and our three kiddos are Mason, Kaili, and Elijah. We moved to Japan in early 2022 and live in inland Yokohama in southwest greater Tokyo. We are originally from the Seattle area and our home church is Lighthouse Christian Church in Bellevue, WA. We are trained as a pharmacist and physical therapist but God has called us to leave behind friends, family, and career to minister in Japan. Our sending organization is WorldVenture (known as JVENTURE in Japan) and we are part of the missionary church-planting team called the Cross Project in Kanagawa prefecture. While this journey has been filled with insecurity, second-guessing, facing fears, and adjusting expectations, we are excited for all that God has planned for us in Japan!
Why move to Japan?
To share God's love and good news with the Japanese people.
To follow God's crazy plan for our family.
To "raise prayer" for Japan so that God may reveal His plans for others to serve the Japanese too.
Simply put, because God has called us.
Where in Japan are we?
For at least the first term, we are living in the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa prefecture, just south of Tokyo and Kawasaki. We arrived in March 2022, and lived near the Musashi-Kosugi area of Kawasaki. In the summer of 2023 we moved to nearby Yokohama, where one of our church-planting team's church plants is located near Azamino station. It is a rapidly-growing metropolitan area with lots of young families, but it lacks the churches needed to reach the people, of whom less than 1% know Jesus.
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What are we doing?
We believe that God is readying a great movement in Japan for such a time as this, but that leadership for this movement must come from within the next generation of Japanese believers, not foreigners like ourselves. Instead, God is calling us to seek out and invest in a few future leaders who will ultimately spread the good news of Jesus Christ to their own people in a uniquely Japanese way. We are in the process of learning language and culture and training with seasoned missionaries in a church-planting project called the Cross Project in the cities of Kawasaki and Yokohama in Kanagawa prefecture, just south of Tokyo. Once we ease more into ministry, we hope to disciple new believers, empower youth, shepherd families through life challenges, and train new leaders to do the same. We look forward to witnessing how God will use new leaders to strengthen the Japanese church, and the Japanese church to carry His truth and love to other cultures in that region.
Thank you for visiting our website and please comment or send us an email if you'd like more information about our ministries or have any other questions.
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