AsiaStories

Takahashi is one of the 4,000 homeless living in Tokyo and no stranger to distribution lines. He spends part of each day waiting for food donations or other supplies. He isn’t on this side of the line very often — giving, instead of receiving. So when the chance comes to leave his sidewalk “bed” outside of Shinjuku train station to volunteer more than 240 miles away, in one of the hardest hit tsunami areas with Tokyo Baptist Church, Takahashi takes it.

Kiyoshi Sugioka and his team made billions for the Japanese investment company where he worked. The bubble burst when one of Sugioka’s employees made a risky investment resulting in a huge loss of money. When Sugioka chose to repay the company from his personal wealth, he became a Japanese government statistic, joining an estimated 4,000 people sleeping on the streets of Tokyo.

It’s an unlikely group sitting around the table searching through the Scriptures. Until a few months ago, all but one of the men was homeless, living under interstate bridges and in local parks. Now, they are blossoming house church leaders, understanding in a way only the homeless can that “house” is not essential to “house church.”

After Hironobu Honda lost his job at a cleaning company in July 2009, he and his wife, Mitsuko, lived on the streets of Tokyo for weeks. Every night they faced the challenge of finding a safe place to sleep. Every day they worried about where to get their next meal. Their lives changed when they met IMB workers, Mark and Wendy Hoshizaki.