Children Victimized In Child Porn Rises In Japan

Justice Minister Iwaki Adresses 2015 Crime Statistics

The number of children under 18 who have become victims of child pornography in Japan rose to a record-high 905 in 2015, up 159 from the year before, a police report showed Thursday.

Most of the victims were girls, with about 40% having been tricked or coerced into photographing themselves naked, according to the National Police Agency.

The number of investigated child pornography cases totaled 1,938, up 110 from the previous year and a record-high, including possession of pornographic images that became punishable last year under a revised law to protect children from sexual exploitation.

Facing criticism over its loose regulations compared with other industrialized nations, Japan began punishing the production of child pornography through the use of spy cameras in July 2014 and the possession of child pornography for the purpose of satisfying sexual curiosity in July 2015.

In 2015, police investigated 1,063 cases over the production of child pornography, of which 110 involved spy cameras. Seventeen cases were investigated in connection with the simple possession of pornographic images.

Most of the victims were either junior high school or high school students, but the youngest victim was an 8-month-old boy who was photographed by a male babysitter, according to the report.

Among the 144 victims under the age of 13, some 45% were victims of rape or molestation.

The police have collected the data on child pornography from 2000.

In separate data released the same day, the National Police Agency said it confirmed 2,051 cases of unauthorized computer system access in 2015, down 1,494 from the year before and marking the first decrease since 2012.

The police attributed the fall to a sharp drop in spoofing, including cases in which free mobile messaging app Line account was taken over by an unknown person. After many users saw their accounts stolen, Line Corp stepped up cybersecurity measures.

Kyodo

Funahashi Ryuichi Sentenced To 9-13 Years For Murder Of Ryota Uemura

Funahashi Ryuichi Murdered Ryota Uemura

The Yokohama District Court on Wednesday handed down a sentence of nine to 13 years in prison to 19-year-old, Funahashi Ryuichi, for playing a key role in the murder of 13 year old, Ryota Uemura, on a riverbank in Kawasaki, southwest of Tokyo, last year.

In giving the so-called indeterminate sentence as stipulated under Juvenile Law, Presiding Judge Hiroko Kondo highlighted the cruelty of the way Ryota Uemura was assaulted and killed by Funahashi, who had previously been a part of the same peer group.

“The victim’s neck was slashed more than once and he was forced to swim in the river in the middle of winter. This was just so appalling and the cruelty (of the case) stands out,” the judge said.

She also determined that Funhashi “bore the heaviest responsibility” for playing a leading role.

Funahashi had pleaded guilty to the charges in his trial, determined by a panel of professional and citizen judges.

The father of the victim, who was a first-year junior high school student, issued a statement after the court decision, saying, “I cannot accept it by any means. The sentence is way too light.”

Two other 18-year-old boys, Higuchi Toshio and Shibayama Kazuka, have also been arrested over their involvement in the case, but have been indicted on the lesser charge of causing injury resulting in death. Their trials will begin later.

According to the ruling, the Funahashi killed Uemura on Feb 20, 2015 by repeatedly slashing his throat on the banks of the Tama River in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. A total of 43 knife wounds were inflicted on Uemura’s body, including 31 to the neck during the assault, which lasted more than an hour.

The ruling said the killing occurred after Funahashi got angry with Uemura because he told his friends that he was struck by the Funahashi on Jan 17, 2015. The Funahashi felt pressured because Uemura’s friends came to his home after the January assault.

The judge said Funahashi had a “misdirected resentment” against Uemura and he was “extremely self-centered” in that he came up with the idea of killing Uemura after he started assaulting him with the two others at the riverbank, fearing he might be arrested for injuring the victim.

Prosecutors had demanded a sentence of 10 to 15 years in prison saying he played the leading role in the murder, while his defense counsel pleaded for five to 10 years, citing the possibility of reformation.

The defense counsel also insisted that Funahashi did not have “a strong intention to kill,” but the judge rejected the argument, saying, “he continued to attack the victim with the accomplices until the victim died.”

The judge, however, said the defendant’s “immaturity” of allowing violence can largely be attributed to the environment he was brought up in and that warrants lessening his responsibility.

Dallas Brincrest and Charles Gannon

Funahashi, Higuchi, and Shibayama May Be Tried As Adults For Uemura Murder

Update to this story

Murder victim Uemura Ryota at 10 years old

Prosecutors at the Yokohama District Court will decide within the next week whether three minors—arrested for the murder of a 13-year-old boy in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, in February—will be tried as adults.

The latest development comes after the Yokohama Family Court decided on Tuesday to send the three suspects, two boys aged 18 (Ringleader: Funahashi Ryuichi and Higuchi Toshio)  and one boy aged 17, Shibayama Kazuya, back to prosecutors, Fuji TV reported.

The three were arrested on suspicion of killing Ryota Uemura whose naked body was found on the bank of the Tama River in Kawasaki on Feb 20. Funahashi has told police he killed Uemura with a box cutter that was found near the scene of the crime, while the other two have pleaded not guilty to the murder.

 

Shibayama, Funahashi in pink, Higuchi, and Uemura in cap days before murder

Ringleader Funahashi said that he killed Uemura because he told others how he had been beaten for refusing to shoplift at Funahashi's instructions. Before killing Uemura,  Funahashi said he also ordered him to swim naked in the river to punish him. 

Uemura joined a gang whose members were aged from 12 to 20 last November. Uemura was seriously beaten in mid-January and was rarely seen at school after that.

Police have established from records on Line that Shibayama contacted Uemura on the night of Feb 19, telling him to come out and meet them. The three suspects were identified through street surveillance camera footage that showed them walking with Uemura toward the spot where he was murdered. Footage showed them walking back without Uemura.

The suspects burned the victim’s clothes and shoes in a public toilet about 800 meters from where the victim’s body was found. 

Shibayama said he wanted to intervene when he saw Uemura lying on the ground bleeding, but that Funahashi threatened to kill him, too.

Funahashi in Tweet day after he murdered Uemura

From Jiji Press and Dallas Brincrest.

(Since the court may try the suspects as adults they have been named in the story.  This is legal even if the court decides otherwise.  We are an independent news source with no Press Club alliance.)

4 Month Old Suffocated By Mother In Sendai

 

Police in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, said Wednesday they have arrested a 31-year-old woman for suffocating her 4-month-old daughter to death.

According to police, Yumi Suzuki used a blanket to stop her daughter Ayaka from crying at her home sometime between 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

TBS reported that Suzuki called police herself and said she had killed her daughter because she wouldn’t stop crying.

Police said no external injuries were found on the infant’s body.  Suzuki’s husband was away at work at the time of the incident. 

Mother Accused of Throwing Daughter From Bridge

Tsubame Bridge, Niigata

A 24-year-old mother in Tsubame, Niigata Prefecture, has been arrested on suspicion of killing her 3-year-old daughter by throwing her into a river.

Ayumi Sato, an office worker, allegedly dropped her daughter, Miyu, from a bridge in Tsubame on Wednesday night. She has admitted to the charges, the police said.

Sato went to a hospital Thursday morning where her daughter had an appointment and told a staff member that the girl “had disappeared,” the police said.

The hospital notified the police, who started a search of the area. They found the girl’s body floating in the river at around 3 p.m. Thursday.

Sato subsequently admitted she threw the girl from a bridge, the police said. The body was found about 1 km downstream from the bridge.

Aiwa Matsuo's Killer Kept Cat Head In Fridge

Hearse Leaves Ceremony Hall With Matsuo's Body

 

A 16-year-old Japanese schoolgirl who allegedly confessed to decapitating a classmate kept a severed cat head in her refrigerator, a report said Tuesday.

The teen was arrested last week on suspicion of murdering fellow student Aiwa Matsuo, 15, after police discovered her dismembered body on a bed in the suspect’s home in the western Japanese city of Sasebo.

The grisly case has attracted major media attention in a country with one of the world’s lowest crime rates, as commentators search for answers to explain the teenager’s pattern of increasingly violent behaviour.

Some reports have suggested the parents of the girl—who wasn’t named because she is a minor—desperately sought to have her hospitalised but were rebuffed.

On Tuesday, the Mainichi newspaper said investigators found a severed cat head in a refrigerator and about one million yen ($10,000) in cash at the apartment where the girl lived alone.

She had reportedly been living there since April on the advice of psychiatrists after she battered her father with a baseball bat.

Her father—who remarried about three months ago after the girl’s mother died of cancer last year—is believed to have given the cash to his daughter, who reportedly told investigators that she “wanted to dissect someone”.

The man has been quoted as saying that “my daughter’s act can never be forgiven”.

Also Tuesday, the Mainichi and Jiji Press news agency reported that the suspect told her stepmother that she planned to murder a person after growing bored of killing animals.

A day before the incident, her parents consulted with a psychiatrist and tried to get the girl hospitalised but the request was turned down due to lack of space at the facility, Jiji said.

The father then called a local child welfare office, but a security guard told him to telephone back after the weekend. 

Jiji

Psychiatrist Warned Police Teen Could Kill

Murder Victim Aiwa Matsuo

A psychiatrist who examined the 16-year-old girl suspected of killing and dismembering her classmate in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, called a child consultation center in the city in June to warn that she might commit murder, but prefectural officials failed to take any action, it was learned Thursday.

Nagasaki prefectural officials said the center staff judged it would be difficult to take any measures because the psychiatrist declined to identify the girl due to privacy reasons, but the prefectural government and the prefectural assembly said they are investigating whether the center’s decision was appropriate.

The psychiatrist, whose name was known to the center, told staff there that the girl had put poisonous substances in classmates’ school lunches when she was an elementary school student, hit her father with a baseball bat when she was a junior high student and had dissected a small animal.

“If she is left as she is, she could kill someone,” the psychiatrist reportedly told center officials.

After the slaying last weekend, center officials contacted the psychiatrist and found out that the girl mentioned by the doctor was the one who was arrested for killing 15-year-old Aiwa Matsuo. The suspect’s name is being withheld because she is a minor.

A meeting of the prefectural assembly’s education and welfare committee confirmed Thursday that the phone call was made June 10 to the child consultation center.

Police on Thursday night searched the home of the suspect’s father, where the girl lived until April.

The police are looking into the arrested girl’s upbringing to determine a possible motive. According to the high school that both girls attended, the police have interviewed two first-year students.

The police have also collected information from people close to the suspect’s elementary school classmates about the allegations she had mixed a bleaching agent and other substances into school lunches.

One high-ranking Sasebo official, who declined to be named, said the municipal government did not report the incident to the city’s board of education or the municipal assembly when it occurred, thinking the elementary school’s staff would handle the matter.

AFP

Japan Faces First Hague Convention Test

British Foreign Secretary William Hague

A Japanese woman living in Britain has been ordered by a British court to return her child to the father residing in Japan under the Hague Convention, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction imposes rules on the parental custody of children abducted and taken overseas after marriages fall apart. The order was the first to enforce the return of a child to Japan since the convention took effect in this country in April, according to the Foreign Ministry.

The Hague Convention stipulates that a parent who takes a child under 16 overseas without the other parent’s consent must, in principle, return the child to the country where he or she was living.

In the latest case, the Japanese mother left for Britain with her 7-year-old child in March while divorce proceedings were under way in Japan. The father filed a lawsuit with the British court to have the child returned, saying that his wife broke a promise that she would return to Japan in May.

On June 22, the court acknowledged it was illegal for the mother to keep the child in Britain beyond May in light of the Hague Convention. The mother was ordered to send the child back to Japan by Wednesday.

The couple is in the middle of a court battle in Japan to decide who should have custody of the child. After the child leaves Britain on Wednesday, a Japanese court will begin examining the appropriate custody arrangement for the child.

“The way the child would be raised would have been decided only by the mother had the convention not been enforced,” the father’s lawyer, Hirotaka Honda, said in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun.

Through a spokesperson, the mother said: “I didn’t intend to abduct the child. I planned to go home. I don’t understand why the father filed a suit to demand the return of our child.” 

Yomiuri

16 Year Old Sasebo Suspect Speaks to Police

Investigators Leave Suspect's Apartment

A 16-year-old high school girl who was arrested Sunday for the grisly murder of her 15-year-old classmate in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, told police on Monday that she wanted to see what it was like to kill someone.

The suspect was sent to prosecutors as police, educators and psychologists tried to determine her motive for killing Aiwa Matsuo. 

Officials at the school that the two girls attended expressed shock Monday and said there was no indication of any trouble between the two, Sankei Shimbun reported. 

Police said the suspect told them that she and Matsuo went shopping on Saturday afternoon and when they returned to her apartment, she killed her. Police said the girl admitted striking Matsuo on the back of the head at least 10 times with a hammer. She then strangled her with a cord, before hacking her head off with a saw. Matsuo’s left hand was also severed, police said.

After Matsuo failed to return home on Saturday night, her parents called police who came to the suspect’s apartment to look for her. They found the suspect with Matsuo’s body.

The suspect also told police that she bought the tools she used to kill Matsuo a few days prior to the attack.

The suspect had been living alone in the apartment since April. Sankei Shimbun reported that her mother died of an illness last year and that her father had remarried.

Police are also investigating the posting of four anonymous messages, showing some bloody images, on 2channel, which purported to be from someone claiming he or she just murdered someone. The messages were posted after 10 p.m. on the night of the murder, police said. 

Japan Today

15 Year Old Girl Arrested For Beheading Classmate

Investigators at Suspect's Apartment

A 15-year-old Japanese schoolgirl is being held in police custody after she admitted murdering her classmate and dismembering her body.

The teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was arrested on Sunday after the body of 15-year-old Aiwa Matsuo was discovered in the city of Sasebo, in Japan's southwestern Nagasaki Prefecture.

The suspect told police she hit her classmate over the head with a metal object before strangling her.

According to Japan's Kyodo news agency, she also admitted cutting off the victim's head and left hand.  She said she had acted alone.

Police found the body on a bed in the suspect's apartment.  The tools used in the killing were discovered nearby. 

The victim, who graduated from the same junior high school as the suspect, had reportedly gone to meet friends on Saturday afternoon.  Her parents called police when she failed to return home that evening. 

The suspect told police that her mother passed away last April and her father had married a woman she could not tolerate and demanded her father move her to her own apartment near her high school.  The father and step mother have refused to comment.

Mother Arrested For Death of Child

Police in Okinawa on Tuesday arrested a 40-year-old woman after her 5-month-old son died in her car while she played pachinko.

According to police, the woman, identified as Kiyono Arakaki, left her son in the car for six hours from 10:30 a.m. until around 5 p.m. on June 10 while she played pachinko in Tomigusuku in southern Okinawa. Fuji TV quoted police as saying that the child died of heatstroke. The car windows were all shut, police said.

The woman told police she thought the child would be alright. 

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the temperature outside reached a high of 29.8 degrees that day. 

Japan Today

In Japan Interests Of Parents More Important Than Child's Rights

Almost 90% of children taken from their families in Japan end up in institutions rather than foster care, a rights group says, expressing shock at the rate—the highest among developed nations.

Just 12% of children who have been removed from their natural parents are placed with foster families, leaving tens of thousands of other youngsters to languish in understaffed children’s homes, Human Rights Watch said.

That figure is the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a club of rich nations, and is just a fraction of that in Australia, where 93.5% of these children live in a family home.

“It’s heartbreaking to see children crammed into institutions and deprived of the chance for life in a caring family setting,” said Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch.

“While other developed countries place most vulnerable children in family-based care, in Japan, a shocking 90% end up in institutions.”

In neighboring South Korea, 43.6% of children are in foster care. In the United States, it is 77%, while in Britain it is 71.7%.

The 119-page report says 39,000 children in Japan have been removed from their families by the authorities, who determined their parents were either unable or unwilling to look after them.

The report, carried out over a three-year period, found Japan’s child guidance centers—the local administrative bodies charged with dealing with children in care—are “predisposed to institutionalising children rather than placing them in adoption or foster care”.

“These centers often defer to the preference of biological parents to place the child in an institution rather than with a foster family, or seek to avoid time-consuming and often sensitive individual adoption or foster care arrangements.”

“In Japan, the interests of the parents is seen as more important than the interests of the child,” the report quoted one care worker as saying.

Existing childcare institutions—while non-profit organizations—also have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo as their funding is determined by the number of children that live with them.

“Japan’s childcare policymakers are allowing bureaucratic priorities to get in the way of finding alternative care that is in the child’s best interest,” Doi said.

“While many people working in the system are committed to helping children, a sustainable solution should recognize that foster care and adoption need to play a much more central role.”

© 2014 AFP

Another Case of Violence Against A Peruvian Child In Japan

One week after it was revealed by Consul General of Peru, Julio Cardenas, that a 13 year old Peruvian girl had been raped by 5 Japanese classmates, a second case of a Japanese racist attack has emerged in Kanazawa.

A 12 year old Peruvian boy was savagely beaten by two Japanese boys of the same age.  The Japanese boys had a history of bullying the boy at school a teacher at the boys' school said.  The teacher wishing to be unnamed said, "The two boys have been bullying the Peruvian boy for the last year.  They have been known to use racist names, trip the boy, and to write racist notes to him.  The principal had a meeting with their parents in February and things seemed to have gotten better."

Unfortunately, they had not gotten better.  Three weeks ago the two Japanese boys confronted the Peruvian as he rode his bicycle home after school.  One boy pushed him off the bike and when he tried to defend himself, the second boy came from behind and beat him on the head with an empty drink can.

A witness says they continued to beat him after he fell to the ground, and did not stop even as he bled from his nose and the wounds on his head.  They only stopped when an unidentified Japanese man stepped in.  The Japanese attackers ran off and the man called police.  Knowing where the boy lived the man then went to the boy's home to tell his mother.  The man returned with the mother just as Kanazawa police arrived.

After an initial investigation at the scene, an officer went to one of the attackers' home and talked to the accused and his mother.  The accused then took the officer to the second accused home where the officer talked with his mother.  The officer returned to the scene where an ambulance crew had arrived and began treating the victim's injuries.  The boy was taken to a hospital where he was treated, and xrays showed no serious injury his skull, so he was released.

Police the next day arrived to the victim's home with an offer from the parents of the attackers of money for the medical treatment and a small amount of apology money.  When the mother refused so she could get legal consultation, the police informed her their offer would only be made once.

An attorney procured for the woman by the Peruvian Consulate in Tokyo, Kotaro Tanaka, says that he is looking into the case going to Juvenile Court in Kanazawa so the mother can get medical bills paid and also damages for the boy's physical, mental, and emotional anguish.  Mr. Tanaka says that his office can make no other statements as the case is being reviewed by Kanazawa courts.  Tanaka and the boy's mother want attempted murder charges filed against the attackers and their parents charged with obstructing justice for making a financial offer to quiet the case.  They also want Kanazawa prefecture and city government officials to investigate methods police use.

The boy is currently being treated by a psychologist in Kanagawa and also by a therapist specializing with victims of bullying.  The Peruvian Consulate says the case became known after the mother called the Peruvian Consulate after reading a Peruvian website reporting on the rape victim in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka.

The Peruvian Consul General, Mr. Cardenas, comments, "Foreigners in Japan need to be made aware of what their rights are by the Japanese government.  There are far too many cases of violence against foreigners at the moment."  The mother reports she is afraid of reprisals from the parents of the attackers after she received legal representation.  A note in Japanese was taped to the door of her home stating that "If you do not like your treatment go back to Peru and take all the other trash with you."  Parents of the attackers deny writing the note.  Police in Kanazawa say they are still investigating and the case is ongoing.

We will update as more information comes forth.  Rev. Daniel Rea, Editor

UPDATE On Peruvian Girl

By Rev. Daniel Rea
Update May 1, 2014

The presence of Peruvian Consul General Julio Cardenas has motivated police in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka to confiscate the phones of the 5 Japanese girls accused of raping their Peruvian class mate.  The girl and her mother talked over an hour with Consul Cardenas.  After that , she had more details that will help in the police investigation. 

Consul Cardenas has brought the mother and daughter to Tokyo for a consultation with a Japanese lawyer, Kotaro Tanaka .

The Consul has commented that the girl and her mother have much fear and asked to be removed from Shizuoka.   This afternoon, the mother decided on action to safeguard the physical and psychological health of her family and they left Shizuoka with the Consul.

"They are now leaving Fujinomiya " said an employee at the Peruvian Consulate who asked not to be identified.  The employee added, "They only want to communicate with the Consul, an attorney, and the police . They want justice."

We will keep updating as information comes.

13 Year Old Peruvian Girl Reports Being Raped in Shizuoka School

By Rev. Daniel Rea

Update May 1

A 13 year old Peruvian girl has reported to police and her mother that she has been repeatedly raped by five Japanese female class mates.

The girl, who was a member of a music club at the school in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka, says as one girl penetrated her with a "device" other girls would hold her down as two others would film and take photographs of the rape on their phones.

The girl's mother, who is a single mother, says, "My daughter has been very troubled for some time and I wanted to know why. Last Friday she let me know the reason. I was horrified." After the mother received little help from police and the school or school board, she decided to involve Peruvian Consul General, Julio Cardenas.

Consul General Cardenas has been seen at the Shizuoka Central Police building and also at the school in Fujinomiya. When I contacted the Consul I was told by an employee who wished to remain anonymous, “Today we had a telephone discussion with the mother and we found her to be in a very emotional state. We offered all our support and full cooperation as diplomats in Japan for Peru. It is totally heart breaking that could happen to any child. We must assure our citizens we will not allow any abuse or bullying of our citizens."

School officials refused to comment, as did police in Shizuoka.

UPDATE April 25, 2014 at 5:41 PM

Girl Is Rebuked For Praying At School

A 5-year-old girl in Florida was rebuked by a lunchroom worker for praying in her elementary school cafeteria before her meal reports Charisma News The incident occurred last month; now Marcos Perez, the father’s child has hired lawyers to demand that the school stop “engaging in such religious discrimination” as stated in a letter to the school.

The letter from the Liberty Institute Lawyers explains that the child bowed her head in prayer, but was told by a lunchroom supervisor to stop. 

The girl said, “But it’s good to pray,” to which the supervisor responded, “It is not good.” When the girl tried again to bow her head and pray silently, she was stopped again.

The Liberty Institute argue that the Carillon Elementary School is violating state and federal law. “...we expect the school district to apologize to the Perezez and the community as well as take steps to ensure this does not happen again,” the letter states. 

Since the exchange in the cafeteria, the Perez family has started homeschooling. Perez said, “...we have exercised our option as parents to teach our daughter at home. We live in a very good school district, but we cannot, in good conscience, send our daughter to a school where her religious liberty has been compromised.”

From Christian News Service

New Generation Grows Japan's Chruches

Whether they're in church or standing on a street corner, the members of Grace Tokyo Church loudly sing their songs of praise.

The congregation's young people are part of a new youth movement that many Japanese Christians hope will revive Japan's churches.

Philippines native Glen Nabarrete, who serves as the head pastor at Grace Tokyo, was born and raised in Hawaii. He and his family answered God's call to Japan in 1992.
          
A Dying Church?          
The church in Japan is getting smaller every day. The average Japanese church has 30 people and many have less than 10 members.
           
Church historian Masakazu Suzuki says traditional churches are dying out.

"After the war, a lot of American GI's who came to Japan are Christians and later came back to Japan as missionaries. So, after the war, the Japanese churches grew a lot," Suzuki told CBN News. 

"Now after 50, 60 years, a lot of pastors are getting older, facing retirement," he said.  "Also many members are getting older too."

Like most Christians, Suzuki believes God is using the recent disasters to open the hearts of the Japanese people.

"In Christian evacuation centers, some of the aged people, five or six died. Six to seven old people died. But through their love and unity, some family members who visit them become Christian. More than 15 of them got baptized last month," Suzuki said.

Spiritual Awakening
                                
There have been more than 1,200 aftershocks since the March 11 earthquake and there could be more, but Christians here are praying for another kind of aftershock and that is the spiritual awakening of the Japanese people.

Businessman Yuto Matsumoto saw how the power of God restored his marriage after a divorce.
         
"I worked too hard, not too much attention for my family," Matsumoto said.
          
His Christian daughter visited him in New York where he moved, and took him to watch the film "Passion of the Christ" on Easter.

Later, back in Japan, she brought him to the church their family has been attending since converting to Christianity.

"During the preaching, I couldn't stop crying. I don't know why," Matsumoto recalled. "Right after the service, I went to Pastor Scott and asked him how I can become a Christian. That was April 2004. I accepted Jesus as Lord. It was the beginning of my new life."

Two years ago, Matsumoto re-married Takako, his ex-wife. Today, they have a harmonious relationship with Christ at the center of their marriage.

He also shares his faith with his colleagues at work.

"It's very tough especially for the businessman because Japanese businessmen were taught to believe in his power, or on himself," he said.

Nevertheless, Matsumoto invites his co-worker to visit grace Tokyo church where he serves as an interpreter.

The Joy of God

Pastor Nabarrete and his family answered God's call to Japan in 1992.

"I believe in this church," Nabarrete said about Grace Tokyo.

"One of the things we have that a lot of Japanese churches don't have is a lot of joy and a lot of laughter," he told CBN News. "I think that's one quality that God wants to bring to this nation.  There is the reality of joy in serving God."

"And we also cater to young people," he added. "We let the young people step up, do preaching. Young people love it they want to participate for the growth of the church."

The youth go out of their way to spread God's love, singing gospel songs on the street, even when reprimanded by the police.

"The idea is just praise and worship on the street and let God move and touch people's lives. Someone stands near; we talk to them and invite them to church," Grace Tokyo youth leader Gerwin Echegoyen said.

"When I first moved in 1992, church growth was very small," Nabarrete said. "Our church at Yokohama Grace Bible Church was about 30 people in 10 years. So for us Tokyo Bible, two years with 60 people is phenomenal. God has been gracious to us here."

The young Christians hope that through their involvement, Japan's older churches can be made young again -- and other dying churches can be reborn.