Preface from the Translator

This is an unofficial translation that I have been working on in my personal time. There is no affiliation with the original publishing company, so please refer to the original text to get definitive information

There are a lot of concepts in this book that are familiar to a Japanese audience (like Japanese mugwort, Iroha, and sakoku), but not to a Western audience. For this reason, I've added links throughout the text so you can learn more about these concepts, but the links are not present in the original book's text.

Many books that don't have an English translation are mentioned throughout the text as well, so I have written the Japanese title in italics followed by my own translation of the title where this applies. There are some cases where the English translation exists for more popular works, so I have added a link for some of those texts. I have also left all of the sources at the end of each chapter in Japanese since there is no English translation (that I know of) present, and also because there could be discrepancies between the page numbers cited, etc.

It has been a pleasure to work on this translation, and I hope that this sparks your interest in missionary work in Japan, whether you decide to become a missionary yourself, if you want to help those who go, or if you simply want to pray for the salvation of the Japanese people.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6