Location: Kobe, Japan

Presbytery: Japan

Organization: 1960

Membership: 59 communicant; 22 baptized

Pastor: Sumito Sakai

Website: rpchigashisu-ma.main.jp

Higashisuma RPC is located in Oote-cho, Suma-ku, Kobe City. It was established in 1960 at its current location—the oldest and first organized Reformed Presbyterian congregation in Japan.

Dr. Samuel Boyle and Dr. Charles Chao began their ministry in their missionary house on the top of the mountain called Ichinotani (famous for the battle between the Genji clan and the Heike clan in 1184 AD) near the popular Sumaura Beach. This Ichinotani mission (which later became Higashisuma RPC) was the first fruit of the Covenanter Book Room in the downtown area of Kobe City, launched by the RPCNA missionaries who had fled overseas from China and arrived at Kobe in 1950. At that time, Missionary Orlena Lynn (later Mrs. Boyle), Missionary Mary Adams, and Missionary Rose Houston were also on the mission team.

The first pastor of Higashisuma RPC was Pastor Toshio Masunaga, who was also the first Japanese pastor in the work. After 35 years as a pastor, he was forced to retire due to a serious illness after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that struck the Hanshin region in 1995. Pastor Sumito Sakai, ordained in 1994, became his successor and continues to serve to this day. In 1997, Hontamon Mission Church was launched by Higashisuma RPC and eventually merged with its sponsoring church in 2007.

Home meetings played an important role in the earlier stage of outreach by the Covenanter Bookstore. Bible study meetings were held in the houses of the Funahashi, Hagiwara, and Sakai families, and some seekers were converted and baptized. Mrs. Yoko Murao, the elder sister of Mrs. Hideko Okuda (the first baptized member of the Sakai family’s Bible study group) was baptized last year.

In the 1995 earthquake, the old church building was damaged and was labeled by the Kobe City government as completely destroyed. The Covenanter Bookstore’s building was also damaged, and funds were donated to the reconstruction of the devastated Covenanter Bookstore building. As a result, the reconstruction of our church building was delayed until 2007.

In addition to weekly Bible and doctrinal studies, prayer meetings, and seeker classes being held after worship, our ministries include English conversation classes for neighbors and an annual “open church.” In recent years, we have had baptized and transfer members, as well as seekers, join us every year, and we are wholeheartedly thankful to the Lord our God. This year, Mr. Katsunori Endo (who was a former minister of the Kita-Suzurandai mission station that closed last year) and his family have also joined us and have been a spiritual encouragement to the session.

The congregation draws members who reside both inside and outside Kobe, including those who live in other parts of Japan and even outside Japan. So please pray that we might walk as a blessed body of Christ, united in Christ, and that we would make steady progress. Mrs. Harumi Akemoto, a seeker, is the closest neighbor to the church and enthusiastically gathers for worship. Please pray that she may accept the Lord’s salvation. Two new deacon candidates were elected at the end of October. Please pray for the blessing of the service of the congregation (pastor and elder) and the deacons so that a new elder will be elected sometime to serve as a fine instrument of the Lord. We also pray for blessing upon our brothers and sisters in the Lord in the RPCNA at large.