Nagasaki City

Nagasaki

Nagasaki City, (Nah-gah-sah-key) Japan is located on the west coast of Kyushu. Hundreds of islands fill the Nagasaki Bay leading to the East China Sea. Nagasaki is the only port in Japan open for restricted trade during Japan’s period of isolation in the 17th through 19th centuries.

Gardens, temples, and monuments throughout the city are dedicated to those who died in the atomic bombing of l945 that ended WWII. These include graves of foreigners who died in this gateway city as well as the Christians who were martyred in Nagasaki.

The oldest Christian church in Japan, the Oura Tenshu-do, was built in 1864 to serve the foreign community of the city. Soon after its completion, a group of Japanese visited the church and identified themselves as kakure-kurishitan “Christians in hiding”, who had been secretly practicing their faith in nearby Urakami for almost two hundred and fifty years.

The Confucius Shrine in Nagasaki is said to be the world’s only Confucian shrine built by Chinese hands outside of China.

Jesuit Priest Francisco Xavier brought Christianity to Japan and it prospered over half a century. During the Tokugawa era Japan became a unified country and the government strictly suppressed Christians. Missionaries and prominent Japanese Christians were banned to Manila and Macao. Many priests went into hiding and a large number of followers refused to renounce their faith.

In the following months and years, they were captured and forced either to recant or die as martyrs. An estimated forty thousand were executed between the event known as the Martydom of the 26 Saints on February 5, 1597 and the lifting of the ban on Christianity in 1873. Twenty-six individuals ranging in age of 12 to 64 years of age were crucified on crosses. There is a memorial to them today at a park in the center of the city.

Prayer Requests:

•   Pray that many shrines and memorials to the dead will cause the lost in Nagasaki to realize they are spiritually dead and in need of salvation in Christ.
•   Pray that Christians will not be hidden Christians but bold witnesses of His mighty power and love.
•   Pray that the gospel will once again prosper in the hearts and lives of Japanese in Nagasaki and that thousands of believers will be nurtured and be fruitful, sharing Christ with friends and family.