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part-1 aprt-2 part-3
Chapter 1:The Calling
The Garzas received Jesus in their heart and were saved in Puebla,Mexico,1983.
The next year Rodolfo was reading a magazine about Japanese economics. It was more about Japanese culture and religion than its industry. He found out that the Christian population in Japan was less than 0.5% and that more than 99% were Shinto and Buddhists. At that moment, he felt such sadness, and simultaneously, a compassion for the Japanese people. The next day there was a prayer meeting and there was an opportunity to pick one nation to intercede for so he started praying for Japan earnestly from that moment on.
In 1985, during a time of praise & worship at his church, Rodolfo had a vision. In that vision, he saw a Japanese woman crying for help, begging, saying, "Hayaku tasukete kudasai, Hayaku tatsukete kudasai!'". In an other occasion he also had a dream where he saw two Japanese women dressed in black so afraid sitting on a bench when all of a sudden a huge wave came and took them into the sea. God had started giving the whole family His vision for Japan. One day their little daughter, Judy, saw a photo of a Japanese girl in a magazine of National Geographic and she went crying to her parents and said to them, "I want to share the Gospel to this girl." Rodolfo and Adriana were surprised, and saw that God was confirming in many ways His calling to go to Japan as missionaries.
Most of the people at Amistad de Puebla, the Garza's home church, did not want them to leave Mexico because they loved them so much. However, they were convinced of their calling to go to Japan. Some of their closest friends told them that Japan was a spiritual desert and that there would be nothing to do there. Even so, their love for Japan grew stronger.
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One of the last signs God gave to Rodolfo to go to Japan happened in the Fall of 1999 at an Amistad de Puebla prayer meetings; one man came up to Rodolfo and said to him: "I don't really understand, but I had two strange dreams about you the other day. In one of the dreams I saw you on top of a tree and under the tree there was a big black bull waiting to kill you, but you came down and the bull did not harm you and you started walking crossing a rice field towards the East horizon. The other dream was that I saw you preaching in front of many people but without your shoes on. You were wearing a suit and you had a tie on and I laughed when I saw that you didn't have your shoes on.". Rodolfo understood immediately that God was calling Him clearly. This man was telling him about his dream without knowing Japanese customs or Rodolfo's plan. Later that same day Rodolfo found a verse in Genesis 41:32 that confirmed what this man had told him: "And the dream was repeated twice because God is confirming that this will soon happen".
Chapter 2: God's preparation
Rumiko worked in Sapporo as a high school teacher for 3 years. After that, she got a scholarship from the Rotary Club in 1987 and went to study at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Two months later, she received Jesus as her Lord and savior. After the first year in Athens, there was an opportunity to receive a scholarship from the university by teaching Japanese there. She
stayed there for the third year as a Japanese instructor. During that time she was involved in reaching out to international students preaching the Gospel to them.
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In the summer of 1990, the Rodolfo and Adriana came to Japan to spy the land, visiting 8 cities in one month. Simultaneously Rumiko visited her home and while she was there she visited a church in Sapporo where she was asked to interpret for a guest speaker at CFA. The guest speakers were the Garzas!. Through meeting Rodolfo and Adriana, her faith and Christian walk
was transformed. During one of the meetings Rumiko was baptized by the Holy Spirit, and as she went back to the U.S. she went in the power and fire of the Holy Spirit. Rumiko started to share about the love of Jesus to people even more boldly.
Once the Garzas had returned to Mexico they began to pray in order to know which of the 8 cities were they to go to in Japan. They received a letter from Rumiko saying that she had decided to go back to Sapporo in the summer of 1991. They had been thinking of having her as an interpreter if they were to go to Sapporo. That was a small cloud for the Garzas, confirming to them that the Lord wanted them to go to Sapporo.
In November 1990, 3 months after Rumiko went back to the U.S., she met Yoshihiro who was visiting a friend. Yoshihiro heard the Gospel for the first time but, at that time, he did not show any interest. Rumiko wrote to Rodolfo in Mexico after that asking him to pray for some Japanese friends so that they could be saved. Yoshihiro's name was on that list. Unbeknownst to
Rodolfo, he was praying for the man that would years later become his co-laborer and co-pastor.
In March 1991 Amistad de Puebla had a missionary conference and there was a meeting where the speaker made an altar call for those who had a calling to be missionaries, that day Rodolfo and Adriana made a decision to be missionaries to Japan, at the same moment, right after they had prayed, the secretary brought to them a fax that had been sent to them from the Gyurkos
from CFA, saying that: "if you have decided to come to Sapporo then everything is ready for you.". Their conviction to go to Sapporo became even stronger.
