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Missionaries Profile

Japan

Languages: Japanese

Religions: Up to 84% of Japanese claim no personal religion. Shinto and Buddhism predominate, with people practicing more than one religion; less than 1% Christian

Ethnic groups: Japanese, Ainu, Korean-Japanese, other

Location: The archipelago has four main islands and about 4,000 smaller ones off the coasts of Korea and the Russian Federation

Size: 145,870 square miles, 377,657 square kilometers, or about the size of Montana

Population: 126,772,000 (2001 est.)

Predmore, Carolyn Predmore Carolyn

After several years as mission correspondent and treasurer and work in three Japan Baptist Union related schools, Carolyn has returned to the Seto Inland Sea area, an area that she served early in her career in Japan. The area is made up of seven churches and several meeting places. Referred to by the Japan Baptist Union as the Naikai Region, it is the smallest and weakest of the Japan Baptist Union's four regions.

Much of the work of this area is on several islands of the Seto Inland Sea, an area between three of the main islands (Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu) of Japan. The work was started by Captain Bickel and the Gospel Ship more than an hundred years ago. At that time, the islands were thriving and the sea was the major mode of transportation. Today, much of the younger population has moved to the metropolitan areas and the train and car have replaced the ship as means of transportation.

In 1994 Hiroshima officially became a preaching place supported by the Japan Baptist Union. That means that the Japan Baptist Union financially supports the work in a diminishing fashion looking toward self-support and establishment as a church in ten years. Especially through the work of Rev. Fujii the congregation grew and was established as the Hiroshima Peace Church on March 20, 2004. Rev. Fujii was called to another church and in April 2006 the Hiroshima Peace Christian Church called its second pastor, Rev. Tamura

Carolyn divides her time between the Hiroshima Peace Christian Church and the other churches and meeting places of the Naikai Region. Some of her tasks include preaching, teaching Bible and teaching English conversation. She sees her work as mainly supporting these Christian congregations and working with the pastors of this region to proclaim Christ to a population where less than one percent is Christian.

Language used in ministry: Japanese