Founded as the China Inland Mission

OMF International was founded in 1865 as the China Inland Mission (CIM) by the English physician James Hudson Taylor. He had a great desire to proclaim God’s good news not only in the coastal cities of China, but also to bring it to the previously unreached interior provinces of China. Taylor described his decision on the beach at Brighton as follows:

“Unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge, I wandered out on the sands alone in great spiritual agony and there the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told Him that all responsibility as to the issues and consequences must rest with Him. That as His servant, it was mine to obey and to follow Him, His to direct to care for and to guide me and those who might labor with me. Need I say that peace at once flowed into my burdened heart. There and then, I asked Him for 24 fellow workers, two for each of the 11 inland provinces which were without a missionary and two for Mongolia. And writing the petition on the margin in the Bible I had with me, I returned home with a heart enjoying rest such as I have been stranger to for months.”

Hudson Taylor and the missionaries who left with him for China were men and women of prayer who entrusted both their daily work and their provision completely to God. As a result of their unconditional, childlike faith and the hours they spent in prayer every day, they saw God working powerfully among the Chinese and minorities living in China, and many of them came to faith. By 1939, despite much political unrest, persecution, and war, the mission community had grown to about 1,300 members, and nearly 200,000 people in China had been baptized.

How did OMF Come to Japan?

In the 1950s, after the communists took power in China, CIM was forced to leave the country. Instead of dissolving the mission, the leadership decided to go to other countries in East Asia, where they first preached the message of Jesus among Chinese people and eventually among the local population as well.

Although there were hardly any Chinese in Japan at that time, after receiving two large donations for missionary work in Japan, the CIM felt led by God to go to Japan, where the first CIM missionaries arrived in 1951. Following the pioneering spirit of Hudson Taylor and his concern for the unreached, they began where there had been no Christian mission until then: the two northernmost prefectures of Hokkaido and Aomori.

In 1964, CIM changed its name to “Overseas Missionary Fellowship” (OMF). Today, OMF works in many countries in East Asia and worldwide among East Asians to bring them God’s invitation to a deep relationship of love and trust with Him. In Japan, OMF’s ministry extends from Hokkaido across Tohoku, the northeastern part of the main island, to Kanto, the area around Tokyo.

Values of OMF

Values of OMF As a Faith Mission, OMF has been working since its beginning with the premise that when God calls people to a work, He will also provide for their ministry and their needs, following Hudson Taylor’s motto, “Have faith in God!” Therefore, as God’s co-workers in His worldwide mission, we also trust Him completely for His provision and support.

OMF is an interdenominational, evangelical missionary fellowship in which more than 2,100 missionaries and other staff from about 40 different countries and of all ages work together. This diversity is both a strength and a challenge. We place great emphasis on the “fellowship” in “missionary fellowship,” and even though we come from different cultures and church backgrounds, we want to live together as God’s family, share resources and care for one another.

We also want to maintain respect for the culture of the ethnic groups and social classes in which we work. No culture on this earth has been spared the destructive influence of separation from God, selfishness, and human cruelty. Every nation carries deep wounds and trauma. But at the same time, every culture has been given a special beauty and dignity by God. We want to bring these to light and make them shine. Therefore, we strive to learn the language and culture of the people in order to collaborate with them in spreading God’s kingdom of peace in their country and beyond its borders.