From Japan to Corban and Back Again: How Maina’s Faith Became a Mission
When Maina Koike arrived in Oregon as an exchange student from Japan, she expected culture shock, a radically different school experience, and hopefully a few new friends she could remember when she returned to Japan. What she didn’t expect was to meet Jesus and to have her entire future redirected by Him.
Maina came to faith while attending Salem Academy, stepping into Christianity with almost no background. “I didn’t know Jesus at all beforehand, and I’d never even read the Bible,” she said. But while her salvation story began there, God’s calling began at Corban University.
At Corban, Maina found so many who were willing to walk with her, answer questions, and build her up in faith. “My friends in my dorm, in class, my professors, they’re all willing to pray for me,” she said. “I had never felt something so generous and kind. In them, I saw Christ.”
In a community that prioritized the gospel lived out, she began to grow not just inwardly, but turned the love she felt for Christ outward. An intercultural studies major, Maina was afforded opportunities to engage in real-world missions. On a trip to Bulgaria, she served the Roma people, partnering with relief ministries, running children’s camps, and engaging in street evangelism. She saw a level of physical need she had never encountered, but also an insatiable hunger for the gospel.
“Because of their hunger for God, I was convicted to share the gospel in my everyday life,” she said.
It was a conviction she did not leave overseas. Returning to Salem, she joined her Corban friends for street evangelism at Riverfront Park.
Those experiences, Bulgaria and Salem, became stepping stones that led her heart for evangelism back home. “God has privileged me to already know the language and the culture,” she said. “So many people in Japan are in the same place I was. They have never even heard the name of Jesus.”
When she returned for visits to Japan, Maina didn’t just bring the gospel back to her home country, she brought it into her home. While away at Corban, she had started praying with her mother through text. Her mother began asking questions about the Bible, about creation, about Jesus.
During one return trip, Maina summoned the courage to ask her mother directly if she believed there is a God. Her mother admitted there has to be a God. Maina asked if she believed Jesus died for her sins. To her surprise, her mother said yes. That day, Maina led her mother to Christ.
“I still can’t describe the feeling,” she said. “It’s just amazing that God truly does save people.”
Looking ahead, Maina hopes to return to Japan and pursue ministry full-time, sharing Christ in a culture where His name is hardly spoken. “I want to start just by opening up my home and inviting people for a meal,” she said. “In Japan, our culture can be very private, and it is very important to build a relationship first.”
Relationships, after all, are what first built Maina’s faith.
“I have received so much peace and joy from being in an environment like this with people who love Jesus,” she said. “Looking back, I can see what God was preparing me for all along. I’m just excited to embrace it.”
