But after his three-month stay in Alaska, he went back to Japan where dreams of success and financial prosperity consumed his life. For three years he forgot the God he had prayed to in Sitka and pursued a career that would bring him material happiness.
In Tokyo, Nao became a manager at a sporting goods company. He was able to buy a nice car and expensive clothes, and had a girlfriend. “But even when I reached those goals, I was not happy,” he recalls. “One day I even started to think, ‘Well, maybe dying is best.’ And then I saw why so many Japanese people commit suicide every day.”
But the Lord helped him remember his time in Alaska, and after almost four years of work at the company, Nao returned to Alaska, this time to Denali National Park. There he camped, had encounters with moose and bears, and saw the glory of the mountains. Once again he searched for purpose, this time through prayer and the Bible, and found that God had not rejected, but forgiven and accepted him as His own.
This second trip was the shifting point. He accepted Jesus into his life, returned to Tokyo, quit his job, and entered a seminary program to equip him for ministry. He spent two years at a Bible training institute and then moved to the U.S. where he took an internship at a Japanese church in Torrance, California.
While attending English school, he met Cecil O’Dell, a missionary who works with the Japanese returnee ministry in Long Beach, California. The two began meeting together weekly, and O’Dell began to see great potential in his new friend. “I was so impressed with [Nao’s] faith and his desire to serve God and his love to share and teach the Bible,” said O’Dell. As he continued to talk with Nao, he realized that they both approached ministry from a similar standpoint.“I’m not interested in programs or events; I just want to spend time with people,” says Nao, who shares O’Dell’s ministry priority: relationship over program. They both want to reach the hearts of individuals through personal interaction.
One of the unique and influential results of this desire to do relationship-based ministry is the surfing outreach that has been going on for four years now. “Surfing is a really popular sport in America as well as Japan.” says Nao, who works with the Japanese Returnee ministry, which provides equipment and guidance for students who want to surf and are searching for faith.Currently Nao Makino, now age 34, supports his ministry by working at the Long Beach GBC as a maintenance man. He is engaged to be married this month to Chiko, a young Japanese woman he met through the surfing ministry. They hope to raise enough support one day to become full-time missionaries in their home country with GBIM. Please pray for this young couple and support their ministry.