“Does that not bother you?” Asking God tough questions

David J. (full name withheld for s­­­­ecurity purposes) was 17, at relative ease before a United States Marine who fought in Japan during World War II told him something he couldn’t stop thinking about.

The Minnesota teenager’s life was about to change course. A few years before, his mother had a sudden, severe stroke in the night and died. His father remarried a good woman, yet she would die of cancer a few years later.

However, right then, David was locked on one experience: the words coming out of Glenn Swanson’s mouth. What the teenager heard wasn’t a blistering, boot camp tongue-lashing.

Instead, Swanson said the next generation of missionaries to Japan would be the ones who reap the harvest. The Marine had set aside his skills on the battlefield to share Christ with the least-reached Japanese.

Swanson wanted David and everyone else at his church to understand his work in global missions would bear fruit decades later.

“When I heard it at the age of 17 ― and when I just repeated it ― there is an interesting feeling that goes up and down my spine,” David said in December.

‘To die is gain’

Over time, the quiet and shy teenager processed what God was saying through that tingling spine. He knew the Lord called him to serve the Japanese people, just as Swanson and his wife, Peg, did for a generation.

The death of his mother and adjustment to the new love of his stepmom ― all during high school, no less ― played a part in his journey. Still, God continued planning David’s moments and leading the teen.

In the years after his mother died, his faith in God grew solid as he realized the Lord was with him, even in the uncertainties of life.

Related: Six gauges for your soul in a time of crisis

“It was just this sense of God being in charge and very present,” he said of the time after his mother’s shocking death.

He and his father walked around with a weight of heaviness, sensing that they lived in a separate world from everyone else as they grieved. He sometimes managed the heaviness by making himself inhale and exhale.

In those years, and even now, he holds onto the apostle Paul’s words to the Philippians: “To live is Christ, to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).

Can you trust God?

A few years later, now in college and sitting on the steps of a Bethel University building, David meditated on a Bible passage. It was homework, at least in one sense. But, as before with the Marine-turned-missionary, God was about to speak.

As he read the Bible, the lines of the well-known hymn ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ rose within him. Yet, as the phrase, “All I have needed, thy hand hath provided,” came to mind, David’s heart strongly disagreed.

“When I got to that point, I stopped dead in my thought process,” he explained. “God, you have not provided all that I have needed. To a certain degree, I was angry.”

Related: Life interrupted ― how is God shaping you?

But, to an even greater degree, God was present and patient.

“Here’s what I learned,” he said. “It’s OK to tell God what is on your heart, to be angry with him. But then you need to listen to him.”

God told David he was providing what the college student needed, right at that moment.

“That was a huge, huge moment for me that has sustained me ever since in many, many ways,” he added.

Who’s on the list?

After graduating in 1980, he couldn’t find work in elementary education and social studies near his home. So, he broadened his search, including into Omaha, Nebraska, where his sister lived with her husband.

He found a job there teaching fourth grade in public schools. When he got to the Cornhusker state, his sister had a list of five or six young women for David to meet.

“I was only interested in one woman on the list,” David said. That woman is now his wife, Carol. They’ve raised three children together and now have grandchildren multiplying the family’s life and joy.

Carol grew up in a Mennonite farming family that wasn’t much different in worship and lifestyle than David’s Baptist General Conference (now Converge) church. Carol’s family and neighbors raised dairy cows and “a little bit of everything,” she said. David, as a city dweller, didn’t fit in at first.

Still, David’s sister, who originally had the matchmaker list, “is happy with my choice,” he said. That sister’s name happens to be Carol.

David and his wife Carol sensed a call to missions. After David started teaching in Omaha, he and Carol felt it was time to help elsewhere.

Related: How to become a missionary

So, they moved back to Minnesota to attend Bethel Seminary for a master of divinity degree. Four years later, he finished his studies in 1986. Then, the couple started making plans and raising support to move to Japan.

You do realize you’re the next generation

In November 1987, David and Carol visited one final church before leaving for Japan. Swanson was there with his wife, Peg. He asked David when their ministry started. “Nov. 30,” he said.

‘You do realize you arrive on Dec. 1 and that is my first day of retirement,’ Swanson told them.

“I was the next generation of missionaries to Japan,” David said of his service to the Lord.

He and Carol would plant two churches to reach Japanese people and start a ministry to people who left the island nation for school and came back. What they saw God do in Japan, which has had some gospel witness for 450 years, still stirs their meditations.

David is now the international leader for Converge ministries in Asia. He supports global workers across Asia loving people in the least-reached nations.

Related: How Converge is helping Asia’s least-reached people groups meet, know and follow Jesus

“I pray diligently about that and often tell him, ‘God, still to this day about only 0.5% [of Japanese] know your Son,’” he said. “‘Does that not bother you? Are you not disturbed that they are so ignorant of you?’”

In his role, David sees again what Swanson modeled: everyone is working together on something more significant than anyone.

The churches he started have continued with Japanese leaders. Plus, the ministry to the least-reached nation is expanding. Several Converge workers are in Japan and some are in the United States, but they are passionate about making Christ known.

Part of something bigger

“Anything God wanted me to do, there had to be somebody else he was bringing into that church to carry the work on,” he said. “I don’t want to start anything in ministry that remains dependent on me.”

He continues his confidence and commitment to others with the staff he now supports in Asia as they minister to least-reached people groups.

“I see them as having the skills they’re developing and I want them to move forward,” he said. “I want to get out of the way.”

Related: Initiative works to bring hope to underserved Japan

Evergreen trees and volcanic rocks surround David on Lake Superior’s north shore. He loves to camp there. He and Carol and their kids used to camp when they returned from Japan. But, these days, a teardrop trailer is right for them.

“I don’t enjoy laying on the ground in a tent,” he said. “We’ve upgraded slightly from that.”

Best of all, though, are the sights and sounds as he looks out over the vast lake. Sometimes-strong winds make the waves large enough to pound the rocks.

“Seeing the lake helps me realize I’m a pretty insignificant thing in this world,” he said. “That’s a good thing. That’s a valuable thing.”

‘Make me bold’

Despite losing his mom and then his stepmother to early deaths, plus tornadoes and other troubles untold, fear doesn’t sway David much. He feels the emotion, to be sure. But the goodness and nearness of God increase his confidence. So does the witness from his brothers and sisters in Asia.

A young woman he knew in Vietnam made a stand for Christ, and her family disowned her. She’s just one of many he knows who have braved trials for the Christ who suffered on their behalf.

Another encouragement to him is a pastor in Vietnam who did work in a mountainside village. The residents opposed his work and finally chased him out of their community. When they caught him, they beat him with rocks and whatever else they could find.

Each time he hears of such faith and trial, he asks these believers how he can pray. His heart wants to help, the heart of a pastor still eager for the gospel in Asia. Their answer to him is always similar.

“They want strength to continue speaking of Jesus,” he said. ‘Make me bold to speak Christ’s name,’ they tell him.

That’s when he knows he’s spent time with a saint. Such experiences make it hard for him to sleep afterward. A heaviness, the wrong forced on the right, presses down on him.

Even so, David remembers Swanson, who fought against the Japanese in one decade, only to fight for them in Christ’s name for decades to come. David recalls that God has been faithful, providing all he needed in 34 years of ministry and counting. Finally, he remembers the Apostle Paul’s hope: To live is Christ; to die is gain.

“I can’t lose,” David said. “Nothing scares me anymore. I can’t lose.”

Converge International Ministries is praying for a gospel movement among every least-reached people group ― in our generation. Learn how Converge can help your church reach the nations with the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ.