Welcome to my STINT IN JAPAN page!

Hi! My name is Joren Combs. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, a recent graduate of George Mason University, and a member of Campus Crusade for Christ at GMU. I've lived in the Northern Virginia area since I was 7 years old. I used to be an intellectual atheist who hated Christianity (and Christians, too) but by God's grace I became a believer in Christ in 1999 and He has completely changed my life. For many years since I have been involved with ministry to international students from all over the world. I created this website to tell you how I believe God has laid it on my heart to serve Him in Japan. If God wills it, I will leave September 17th to pursue a one-year nonprofit internship with Campus Crusade for Christ in Japan, ministering to students at area colleges in Tokyo.

This is a Christian undertaking, which is based on the idea that the Japanese people (and everyone else) need to know that salvation and true life is found only in Jesus Christ. If you are new to this idea, please feel free to explore, but please understand - my entire life is based on this notion, so you might find some expressions that might not make sense and ideas you might not accept. Hopefully, you will also find something of the love of Jesus Christ in these pages, and understand what makes us crazy enough to go halfway across the globe to talk about Jesus :)

I first sensed God's calling through the English Corner ministry at George Mason University. We hung out with ESL students who wanted friends to practice English with. It was here that I first met Japanese people. Being attracted to their way of thinking and their culture, I thought maybe I should try taking the language class. I pretty much assumed I was gonna fail it, but I scraped by with a C, so I kept going :D. I won't lie, I'm terrible at language courses, but it made me want to try. After one year of Japanese I felt like maybe I should see whether this was real or not. I'd never really felt "called" before, it was all a mystery, but I had some questions...is it really God's call? Or is it just a passing fad that's gonna abandon me as soon as I step out of the plane at Narita and experience culture shock and wanna run home?

So I decided to find out by going on a summer missions trip to Tokyo. That summer forever changed my life. I had no idea the sense of belonging I would feel; how readily I was willing to adapt and learn and be used by God there. I used to hate cities...still do, but with one glaring exception - Tokyo felt like home now. And the people...God just kept placing me in situations where even though I couldn't really speak Japanese, I was still like a sort of "cultural translator" between others on our missionary team and the Japanese. So needless to say I believe I'm supposed to go back, and now that I've finally graduated, I'm trusting God to send me on a one-year internship with Campus Crusade for Christ in Tokyo, Japan. We leave in September, and I have a lot that needs to happen before I step on that plane.

Would you like to be a part of what God is doing in my life? Please start with the WATCH link to understand who we are and why we're doing this :)

WATCH a presentation about our time in Japan and what we are trusting God for there. Comes with pretty photos!
GIVE financially to support our ministry in Japan.
PRAY for God's will to be done
SHARE with others about this missions trip.