Japan's fast-paced and stress-laden lifestyle, with its emphasis on performance fired by competition, has not brought instant paradise. Rather, it has bred a nation of "workaholics constantly living on the edge," with an abnormally high suicide rate reported by the media.

Young people in the Land of the Rising Sun are discontent and thus open to change (over 50 percent of the total population is under 20 years of age). A number are turning to drugs, new age philosophy, and occult practices.

Less than one percent (or one million Japanese out of a population of 128 million) are Christians today. At the forefront of evangelistic activities in Japan are a host of unlikely missionaries - "Japayukis," or single Filipinas who used to work as nightclub entertainers, many of whom are now married to Japanese men. Out of the 200,000 Filipinos estimated to be working in Japan today, 90,000 are women married or living in with Japanese men.

As a strategy for conquering Japan for the Lord, the Asian Center for Missions (ACM) is tapping into this vast potentital missions force through its Missions Mobilization seminars. These seminars aim to spread world missions awareness among local churches and encourage involvement in missionary activity.

ACM missionaries in Japan are currently reaching out one-on-one or in groups to lonely, homesick Japayukis drawn to the love only God can give. Among them are Nida Cabrera and Nat Ramos who minister mostly to Filipina wives of Japanese men, with high hopes that their husbands and children will hear and accept the Gospel in the process of "wife evangelization."

Nida's ministry as a power evangelist and missionary who conducts healing and deliverance sessions at the Riverside Chapel in Soka-Shi, Saitama-Ken has caused membership to swell to 500. To reach out to Japanese students, Nida will soon enrol in a Japanese language course at the Tokyo University which has a student population of 10,000.

Meanwhile, Nat, who settled in one of the remote towns of Saitama-Ken two years ago, ministers to Filipino wives suffering from marital abuse. He now has a loyal flock of ten families, all enjoying a new lease on life that serves to attract others to the loving, comforting arms of the Savior.