Mobile Site Initiative!™
We are very excited to announce the first outreach campaign of Let's Love Japan. Our primary focus for the years of 2009 and 2010 will be to carry out the production of this project for the November, 2010 launch date, while also spreading the word about our organization to drum up support for our cause.
What is the Mobile Site Initiative?
Initially, when Let's Love Japan was first founded, our goal was to produce a DVD that contained various stories that all shared the Gospel of Christ in a Japanese way. The DVDs would be handed out, free of charge, to people in major cities across Japan. This goal was a catalyst that started our organization. However, when we calculated the cost, manufacturing alone would have run between $500,000 and $750,000, which did not include transporting the discs to various locations (DVDs are heavy!). Total expenses for the project would have been over $1Million! Despite the cost, we still believed that God would provide a way for us to share the Gospel with Japan through entertainment.
A short while later, the chairman of Let's Love Japan was reminded of a fact he learned about Japan in one of his visits to the country. It may be surprising to Westerners, but over 80% of internet usage in Japan is done with "Keitai Denwa": mobile phones. The percentage is growing every year. The Japanese aren't simply reading emails either; they are blogging, shopping and even being entertained!
After some time of sharing and prayer, the board of chairs unanimously agreed that our goal should be shifted from DVD manufacturing to one that is more in line with current Japanese culture. Creating a mobile web site with streaming videos that viewers can watch on their mobile phones would solve many of the problems that would have arisen with the original DVD goal.
- These include:
- Many Japanese do not own DVD players, but almost everyone has a mobile phone.
- If a DVD is taken but not watched, it goes to waste. With a mobile site, we pay per viewer only.
- The total cost for the Mobile Site Initiative is around $90K, about 1/10th the cost of the DVD goal.
Be Part of This!
We need lots of help in order to reach this goal, and there's a part you can play!
Tell Others:
The easiest way you can help us with our goal is to tell others about what we're doing! You can start by telling your friends and family, posting on your blog and joining our Facebook page. Help us get the word out about the need in Japan and how Let's Love Japan is meeting that need! We're developing packets that can help you share for 5 minutes with your church, youth group or campus ministry and help you make a collection to support our efforts.
Financial Support:
The estimated cost to reach one million Japanese people through this project is $90,000. Please give as you are able. The majority of the funds will go to the costs of flyer hand-outs and bandwidth usage which means that the less funding we receive, the less we'll be able to share the Gospel. Other costs include computer hardware and software expenses, project marketing and travel. You can make a donation right now from our donations page or send us a check. Your donations are tax deductible as Let's Love Japan is a 501(c)(3) organization. Every penny from donations goes to support our efforts, and all of our board members are unpaid volunteers.
Share Talents:
Are you a talented Manga-style artist? Are you able speak Japanese and translate Christian concepts into contemporary Japanese? Are you a musician who can write original music for our videos? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then please consider offering up your talents to help us reach our goal. We need a few artists with various anime and manga styles such as "shoujo", "children's" and "traditional", as well as translators who are fluent in colloquial Japanese, and muscians/composers familiar with various forms of Japanese music. Use your skills to make an eternal difference! See the Partner with us page for more info.
Pray:
Something everyone can do to help us is pray. Please pray for the country of Japan and its people, that they will know the grace and love of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Pray that we will meet our funding needs and that our production process will be done swiftly and to a high quality. And, lastly, pray for the Kingdom of God to continue to spread out around the Earth until the day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.