Douma family

Scott Douma has been a missionary in Japan for twenty-seven years and it was during a summer mission trip as a university student that first brought him to the Asian country.

“At first I didn’t feel much of a call to the nation at all, but during this trip I met a young man who would ride a train and a bus for several hours each week to come to the little church I was helping with,” Scott recalls. "The young man had never seen a church in his city, he says and this city apparently had several hundreds of thousands of people. This had such an impact on me.”

Yokohama Church building dedication

Scott began his journey into missions full time in Guam in 1978. Since then, he has been involved with helping plant churches in Hawaii and throughout Asia.

Almost thirty years later, Scott is now the Senior Pastor of Yokohama Grace Bible Church (YGBC). 

In 2007, YGBC planted a church in Yokosuka, led by Ray Mercer, and this year another church was planted in Tokyo that meets in the Shibuya area. The church planting team is being led by Glen Nabarette. "My whole pastoral staff in the Yokohama church is helping - Katsumi Kawamata, James Coble and Ted Kawabata. Campus worker Eriko Oguro, together with Noriko Takahashi and Sakura Amino, are also strongly involved.

YGBC Youth Camp

Plans for the rest of 2008 revolve around developing leaders both in Yokohama and throughout our Every Nation family of churches in Japan. There are currently 11 churches in Japan and Pastor Scott spends a great deal of his time working with their leaders.

“From the northern city of Sapporo to Shizuoka in the center of Japan, we are making an impact to reach young people and to plant new churches. We are making a big push to reach college kids in the Tokyo area. Glen, with the Shibuya church and Pastor David Ryu with another new church plant at Waseda University, are growing churches which are making an impact on Japanese campuses. We hope to have a bigger impact on the young people of the city,” Scott adds.

One story that particularly stands out to him is that of Daisuke, a Junior High School student who had been so beaten down by the pressures of the Japanese school system that he refused to go to school. “He was going down a direction of morally questionable activities and was becoming a very, very dark individual. A neighbor brought him to a youth event and he was impacted by the young people who were full of life and passion. He kept coming back, even though his demeanor was very dark, he was loved and accepted. It wasn’t long before he got saved and is now applying for university at one of the nation’s prestigious institutions.”

First Tokyo Service

How does the tall, blue-eyed Caucasian blend into his surroundings? “I speak and understand Japanese quite well and preach in the language. I also do most of the translation for visiting ministers when they speak in English,” Scott shares. “My reading proficiency is quite good, but my writing ability is not near a native person.”