Nichiko Founder’s Mini-blog
Hello, Friend!
This is Sarah Mather, founder of the Sunday School Storehouse, also known as “Nichiko”–a nickname derived from the first and last kanji characters of the website’s Japanese name. This website was started because of a burden the Lord laid on my heart, back in 2016, for my fellow Sunday School laborers in Japan, both for missionaries and Japanese nationals. For several years since then, my desire and prayer has been to make a website for Sunday School teachers in Japan. Most of the Sunday School teachers I know spend hours putting together their own lessons and activity sheets from scratch rather than getting them from a set curriculum. Which I believe is due to a general lack of accessible Sunday School resources in Japan. It would be a great encouragement to all of us Sunday School teachers here, especially those with less experience, if we could pull together our resources and ideas and share them. I pray and hope that this website might be a blessing and encouragement to my beloved fellow-laborers in Japan as we face the unique Sunday School challenges here.
It has taken a few years for this dream to become a reality, and it is finally here now because of God’s enabling grace! Through His grace alone! And I’d like to take a moment here to say that I’m VERY thankful for my mother’s generous and cheerful help in getting this resource website going. Her help in showing me website-building basics and different word-processing platform tips has been invaluable. Also her proofreading on my Japanese has been indispensable. Thank you, Mom. ❤
I’d also like to thank (in advance) all the kind people who will join me in this task of adding to this resource website. May the Lord bless and use every submission. The vision is for SO much more than the very little this website has to offer right now, but it is a step-by-step process, and needs time and lots of help from others.
As a little introduction to myself, I’d like to share my Testimony Tract. Originally my father’s idea, a ‘testimony tract’ is a tract with a Gospel presentation given from the perspective of one’s own salvation testimony, which includes verses, and more or less a bit about how one came to accept Christ as Saviour, and about one’s own personal walk with Christ, etc. Especially in a country with a culture like Japan, sharing something written (that has a connection to yourself) is an excellent way to gently introduce the Gospel so the receiver feels much less confronted and uncomfortable, thus possibly more open to what one wants to share. It is also wonderful because the person is able to read and think over things alone and at their own pace, and have the opportunity to consider the Gospel without fear of others watching them.
My Joyful Testimony
This is the testimony of my faith. I want to introduce you to the Saviour who has done great things for me. I was taught about the one true God by my parents, and from a very young age I knew about Him. Growing up I probably looked like a good kid, as I tried to obey my parents and do good things. But it wasn’t enough that I just believed that God existed. I didn’t yet have a one-to-one personal relationship with Him. I knew very well that as the Bible (God’s letter to mankind) says, no matter how much I tried, I could never go to Heaven to heaven by doing good works. One day, when I was 8 years old, I decided to accept the free gift of God which is called “the Salvation of Jesus Christ,” also known as “Eternal life.” That day I acknowledged what the Bible says, that all mankind has sinned and are therefore sinners; and I confessed before God that I, too, was a sinner. Even as an 8 year old, I knew that because I had not obeyed a number of God’s commandments, I was a sinner, and that I would have to receive the punishment of my own sin. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death.” This ‘death’ is a spiritual death, which means eternal separation from God when leaving this earth, and suffering in Hell. But God, in his boundless love, planned a way for mankind to be able to escape that punishment. Continuing that same passage, it tells about the gift of God, “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Again another passage, John 3:16, says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That day, I believed in Jesus Christ. This wonderful Jesus Christ, taking on him the form of man, came to earth and lived 33 years in the world, living a sinless life. Then He was hanged on a cross and suffered a terrible death. He offered up His own life on the cross so He could bear our sins on Himself and receive the punishment for our sins–death. After that He was buried in a tomb. But so He could gain victory over death, three days after He died, He rose from the the dead so that I, and any other person who believes, can have eternal life. Because this Saviour took the place for the likes of me, taking all my sins upon Himself, I was able to received forgiveness and eternal life by asking pardon of my sins through Jesus Christ, and I am saved from the fires of Hell. By this my heart has peace within.
When I was saved, I became what is called a Christian. Even if I died right now, because I have been forgiven from all my sin, I will live forever in Heaven with God. When I leave this earth, I have an everlasting joy! The day I was saved I was changed from the path to destruction to the path to Heaven! Now I have a one-to-one personal relationship with the Creator of the world, and I talk to Him through prayer, and He talks to me through His Word. Through prayer and reading God’s Word, everyday I receive joy, encouragement, and strength from God. As a Christian, I am not at all perfect. I am still very much studying my Bible and growing, learning how I can best live for the glory of my Saviour and how I can walk as a good witness for Him. Over the past 14 years my faith has grown. The deeper I get to know God, the more I love Him; and the more I study His word, the more I desire to follow and obey Him. Though He cannot be seen with our eyes, He is always beside me. Even if I mess up a lot, and and fail may times, I have His wonderful promise in Hebrews 13:5 which says, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” I am so thankful for that! My life’s goal is to please the God who loves me. He protects me, loves me, and saved me from the path to destruction, and from my heart I want to follow Him and introduce my friends and acquaintances to Him. Because God also loves you, and He wants to save you from the path to destruction. I want you to know about God’s wonderful gift!!
by Sarah Mather
In addition to the information already given in my testimony tract, I was saved at a fellow missionary family’s Vacation Bible School. The Lord used my friend, the youngest daughter of that family, to asked me if I saved and to encouraged me to accept Christ as my personal Saviour. I’m so thankful for that friend who cared about my soul! She was only 8 years old at that time, too! The Lord truly has been working in my heart over the years, and I love my Lord and His Word So Much! I love children and desire to see Sunday Schools flourish (not just in numbers), and to see children, not just memorizing Bible story facts and having fun, but growing in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, receiving Christ as their personal Saviour, and learning His Word and how to apply it to their daily lives. Children really DO have the potential to get saved at a young age, grow in the Lord, and start to walk closely with God before they reach their teen years. By God’s grace and wisdom, our privilege is to pray for them and provide these children with what they need!!
Note to my bilingual fellow-laborers: This site is bilingual, but that being said, the Japanese side and English side are not word-for-word the same. Also, if you would appreciate having ‘furigana’ on the Japanese side of the website for easier navigating, please let me know. I am not 100% sure that that is feasible right now– but I will see what can be done, if it is needed! 😉 (The Japanese activity sheets already have ‘furigana’ on them, but the written content on webpages do not.)
Last of all, I want to thank YOU for reading my mini-blog and little introduction to myself. I do not know who might be reading this blog, but please, if you do not know Christ as your personal Saviour; if you just happened to come across this website and look at this page out of curiosity, but have no idea of what I was talking about in my testimony tract, and would like to know more, please, by all means contact me here, or get in touch with my pastor and his wife at the church’s contact page. We would be delighted to show you how you can have all your sins forgiven, escape the punishment of Hell, come to know God personally, and secure an eternal home in Heaven! Thank you so much.
May Glory and Praise abound to our dear Lord and Saviour! For without Him, everything is done in vain. I am thankful most of all for my dear Lord who allowed this website to happen, I pray it would please Him, that He would put His blessing on it, and that it would accomplish ALL that He wants it to do!
To re-phrase Psalm 127:1,
“Except the LORD build the [website], they labour in vain that build it…”
Sarah Mather
稚内バプテスト聖書教会・Wakkanai Baptist Bible Church 
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