{"id":148,"date":"2008-11-01T21:55:15","date_gmt":"2008-11-01T12:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/timandreajohnson\/?p=148"},"modified":"2012-06-16T12:35:11","modified_gmt":"2012-06-16T03:35:11","slug":"what-is-gunma-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/timandreajohnson\/2008\/11\/01\/what-is-gunma-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Gunma Harvest?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The vast majority of Gunma Prefecture’s 2 million residents live in 12 cities on the flat area which makes up the northwest part of what we call the Kanto plains, a large plain stretching out in all directions from Tokyo bay. \u00a0However, the majority of our land area here in Gunma is mountainous and is the home for about 50 towns and villages. In the past few years there has been a great deal of political and geographic consolidating of towns and villages all over Japan. Here in Gunma – as of May, 2009 when the last consolidation of municipalities went into effect – we have become 12 cities, 16 towns and 9 villages. But while the boundaries change and the actual number of municipalities decreases, the reality of about 50 towns and villages throughout the mountains of Gunma remains pretty much the same.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years we have tried to pray for these areas, most of which have no church or Christian witness. We have done a bit of research, trying to understand where churches presently are located and looking at the areas where a Christian witness may be most absent or lacking. Although we will provide more details in the days to come on this site…..we begin by describing Gunma Harvest in the following ways:<\/p>\n