Kanto Christian Church is a spirit-filled church started in 1987
by Pastor Stafford and his wife, Junko. The couple met the Lord
through Junko’s illness while living in the States and through
a miraculous healing, Junko then bore Naomi and the family was led
by the Lord to return to Japan in 1986. The first meeting was held
in their living room and shortly after, their second daughter, Priscilla,
was born. On Easter Sunday of the following year, 1987, they rented
a room on the second floor above a car shop in the Tsurumi ward,
Yokohama and had their first official service as a church named
Tsurumi Christian Center. One year later, they moved their church
to a barn owned by Junko’s father in the Hodogaya ward with
a congregation of about 20 people.
In 1992, because of damage to the building by a large typhoon,
the church decided to rebuild. Pastor Stafford received a vision
from the Lord to build a new building built solely by himself with
the help of other Christian volunteers from the building plans to
the purchasing of materials and the actual construction work. The
following year after receiving the vision, Christian volunteers
arrived from America to put up the frame of the building. After
the frame was built, the church was re-dedicated and re-named Kanto
Christian Church.
In 2003 and 2004, with the help of volunteers from America, Canada
and New Zealand, we moved forward with renovation plans. They helped
put up new siding and a garage and deck around the outside of the
building. The church’s desire and long-standing vision to
put up a wooden cross on the outside of the building was fulfilled
at this time. We continue to renovate through the work of our own
hands, relying on the Lord. Throughout the renovation process of
having volunteers from many places come and help, we were blessed
with having a wonderful time of fellowship with them and a sharing
of the joy in building the Lord’s house.
Meanwhile, in 1995, we were convicted by the Lord in the area of
our children and how we are to pass on our faith to the next generation
and so as part of the church, we started Kanto Christian International
School. Our school teachers are all parents of the children and
are all volunteers. The entire school is run in English. We teach
respect, communication and love first of all; and secondly Art,
Computer and Music as well as all the mandatory classes (such as
English, Science, Math and etc). They learn to live out their faith
in this world and the graduates of our school have been successful
in the Lord and in the work place. For more details, please see
our KCIS page.
(June 2005) |
