Practicing kanji while prayer walking

I often distribute tracts and announcements in our neighborhood, a residential area called Tennō New Town. As I do that, I also pray for each family into whose mailbox I put the tract. Perhaps you have your own way of prayer walking through an area, but I use the name of the family to trigger a special prayer for them, as almost every house in Japan has a nameplate at the gate or the door. This is how it works.

Easy

It doesn’t matter how much Japanese you know—there is always some way to pray for people using their name. I pray the most general prayer when there is no name on either gate or door. Since I live in Tennō New Town, I use that. The name Tennō means “king of heaven,” so I pray that God would be the King of Heaven to them and lead them to Him.

For beginners who can only read the rōmaji, you can come up with ideas of how to pray for the people whose names you can read. For instance, Kumon sounds a little like “come on,” so you can pray that that the people who work at this business will come on and find Christ. For the name 大野 often written Ohno, you can pray they are led from an Oh no! experience to an Oh yes! experience with God through Jesus Christ.

For people with “take” in their name, I pray that they will take Christ into their hearts. Be creative with the names. Even if you don’t know the real meanings, you can pray. Of course, most names will be written in Japanese characters, so by learning more of the language, you can be more specific in how you pray. Try it. Make it a fun thing. As you do, you will find the time you spend passing out tracts will go by more quickly, and you will be praying for your neighbors.

Intermediate

For those who have begun to read kanji, you can start out simply. For instance, anything with a 田 (ta or da, meaning “rice field”) can lead you to pray that the word of the cross (十) will be in their mouths (口). In fact, the first president of McDonald’s Japan was Den (田) Fujita. His Christian parents named him 田 because no matter what job he tried, he could always put the word of the cross in his mouth!¹

丘, 岡, or 山 all mean “hill” or “mountain.” Pray for the residents of that house to be led to the Hill of Calvary or to God’s holy mountain. Often at Christmas, I will pray that folks with 村 (mura, village) in their name would come to find the Christ of the village of Bethlehem.

Any names with 木 (tree), 林 (woods), or 森 (forest) prompt me to pray that the cross of Calvary would be a reality in their lives. Especially with 森, there are three trees with one main tree at the top, which represents the scene of the crucifixion of Christ to me. Not only do I pray for that family, but I start praising God for sending His Son to die for me and for all these people I am praying for.

Characters 元 or 本 (both read moto) mean the “base of something.” So if their name is 山本 or 山元, I pray that they would be brought to the foot of the mountain of God and find Him to be all they need. The kanji 本 not only means “book,” but it also can mean “the reality of something.” I often pray that the people will find the true reality of God at work in their lives. The possibilities for how to pray are only limited by our imagination.

Advanced

As you learn more kanji, your prayers can become more specific. You can also work more with combinations of meanings. For example, for Watanabe (渡辺), I pray that these people will “cross over” to where God is—the first kanji means “to cross” (渡る wataru) and the second (辺) implies the general area of something.

Another example is Satō (佐藤). For this the simplest thing is to take the sound only, which is like the word for sugar. I pray that the Word of God will be sweet in their mouths and that they will come to Him and be satisfied. Another thing you can do is take the parts of the kanji and try to create meanings to use in your prayers. The left side of 佐 means “man” and the right side means “left,” so you can pray that they will not be left behind but will rely on the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, to save them. The top of 藤 is the character for grass, but it is actually two crosses (the old kanji actually was just that), so you can pray the message of the cross for the people. On the lower left is the kanji for moon (月), so you can pray that they will reflect the light of God as the moon reflects the sun. The lower right portion of the kanji is like the kanji 泰 (tai), which means “peace,” “tranquility,” and “stability,” so you can pray that they will find peace in God.

The second kanji in Satō (藤) is common in a few other names too. It means “wisteria,” so you can pray that they will be a beautiful flower in God’s garden. Wisteria is also a vine, and vines are sometimes used to tie things together, so you can pray that God will release them from being tied down by Satan.

Any name with 川 or 河 (kawa, river) in it can be used to pray that the “river of God” will flow over them and lead them to Himself. Names using 柳 (yanagi, willow) also make me think of trees planted by the streams of living water (as in Psalm 1).

Names with 崎 or 岬 (both read saki) mean a geographical “cape.” Since a cape is the “end of the road,” you can pray that they will come to God at the end of their search. When I come to names that use 北 (kita, north), I think of the song lyrics “is Mt. Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King,” so I pray that they will be led to Him. Names with 中 (naka, center/within) get me to pray that God will be in their lives. The name Tanaka (田中) is just right for praying that the cross would be central to their lives!

With names that use 野 or 原 (both mean “field” or “plain”), I break out in singing “a higher plane than I have found, Lord, plant my (and their) feet on higher ground.” The kanji 原 is also used to mean the “original” of something, so you can pray that they will find God to be the source of all they need. When I come to the name Itō (either 伊藤 or 伊東), I ask God to show them how much He loves them (愛しい itoshii, beloved). You can do that with other names, too—use words that have the same sound.

This is just a sampling of the way I prayer walk in our town, given that Japanese has thousands of kanji in countless combinations. Happy praying! May you find greater enjoyment in passing out tracts and announcements and in praying specifically for the area where God has called you.

1. 藤田田, Japanese Wikipedia, https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/藤田田 (accessed September 9, 2024).
Photos by Karen Ellrick