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Every crisis is a time of dangers and opportunities

Takeshi Takazawa 2016 headshotTakeshi Takazawa is VP for Strategic Engagement for A3. He is a gifted leader who has served our movement since 1988. Among his many strengths, he sees things well before others see them and he helps us understand deep things. The A2 Community all across Asia dearly loves Takeshi.

In this clip, Takeshi shares about the two Chinese characters for “crisis” which are made up of “danger” and “opportunity”. This topic has been referenced quite a bit recently because of COVID-19. “You’ve probably heard this,” Takazawa starts out.

But this clip is not about Coronavirus. Instead, Takeshi is applying this concept following Japan’s Triple Disaster of 2011. I interviewed Takeshi here in 2016, and five years after the disaster, Japan was still very much in the recovery and rebuilding phase. And looking back now, we can see the tremendous evangelism and church planting opportunities seized by the Church in Japan.

And this perspective should encourage you when crisis strikes.

“Every crisis is a time of dangers and opportunities.”

Why didn’t we publish this video in 2016?

Not long after this interview was recorded and his headshot taken, Takeshi faced the most serious crisis of his own life as he became desperately ill with an auto-immune disease that attacked his own body. On the verge of kidney failure, Takeshi was in the hospital for nine months over the next year. The situation was serious. Our community was devastated by Takeshi’s personal crisis and began earnestly praying for him and his wonderful wife Dorrie.

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In the midst of all of this, Dorrie faced her own personal health crisis with a scary diagnosis and path of rigorous treatment. At one point, the two were simultaneously in separate hospitals in Tokyo; Takeshi checked himself out of his hospital one day to be with Dorrie for her treatment—only to check back into his hospital room that same day.

With that as a backdrop, please watch this short clip as Takeshi helps us understand this concept better.

Watch on YouTube… https://youtu.be/I63yoXZX43g 

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