When we were still in Hiroshima but praying and planning for our future outreach work in Osaka, we felt the Lord lead us to visit Osaka city several times and pray and learn about the city, and we sometimes took short-term workers with us on these trips.  Our survey work in Osaka also included opportunities to do some initial ministry there as well.  As we walked the streets we talked with people and shared through conversation, tracts, Jesus video and cassette tapes, and through giving away Bibles.

Here is an excerpt from a prayer letter written after a survey trip to Osaka in the Fall of 2000:

"Before coming to Hiroshima, Dan and Joji spent a week in Osaka doing pre-evangelism and survey work for our future church-planting efforts.  They visited several Buraku communities and other areas in the city, including areas with many homeless people.  Their hearts were broken as they saw hundreds of homeless people camping along river banks and living under the train bridges.  Talking with a few of the homeless, it seemed that more than food or clothing, they were in great need of hope.  Pray that we would learn effective means of sharing the hope of Jesus with the Burakumin, the homeless, and all of the people of Osaka and Hiroshima and throughout Japan."

Now we are in Osaka and beginning our ministry, but we want to eventually reach out to other cities in the "Kinki" region as well, like Kobe, Kyoto, and Wakayama, so we still make survey trips, and would welcome others to come with us.