TOKYO (BP)--"Five-minute English! Five-minute English! Do you want to practice your English?" a college intern asked outside a busy Tokyo subway station as 27 teenage MKs -- sons and daughters of Southern Baptist missionaries -- looked on.

As several college missions interns modeled how to lead into a Gospel presentation while offering free English lessons, a Japanese woman stopped and watched. One of the MKs began talking to her and, within 30 minutes, the woman gave her life to Christ.

"I started talking about Jesus, and she immediately said she had done too many bad things," said Barbara Coffman*, 15, who lives in the Philippines. "She said she had a problem with drugs. Then she pulled back her sleeves where her arms had all these marks where she'd cut herself. And she lowered her head and said she just wanted to die."

Coffman and the Japanese woman were both crying by this point.

"I just explained that everyone sins, and because of sin we have separation from God, and this causes hopelessness and depression," Coffman recounted. "But there is no sin too great that God can't forgive. She said she believed in Jesus, and then she asked forgiveness for her sins and read the prayer I had . And she told the interns that she prayed from the heart in Japanese."

And this was only the first day of Expedition 2009, a weeklong missions experience for 15- and 16-year-old MKs whose families serve in southern Asia through the International Mission Board. This was the fourth Expedition since the missions program began in the summer of 2003.

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR MKS

"This is an opportunity for high schoolers to be involved in the main thing outside of their comfort zone and separate from their parents," said Gillian Laswell*, a third-culture kid (TCK) consultant serving in Asia who helped organize the trip. "The unique factor unlike a church youth group trip is that eight countries are represented on the team."

Like an American youth group preparing for a mission trip, the 27 rising high school sophomores and juniors raised their own funds to go to Tokyo and underwent an application process. In addition, they had homework assignments to learn about Japan and its culture. Each family also had to arrange air transportation to Japan.

Tokyo, capital of one of the world's wealthiest countries, has a population of 33 million who are overwhelmingly Shinto and Buddhist; less than 1 percent of the population profess to be Christian. These statistics are similar to the countries where some of the MKs live -- with one difference: "Japan is not a closed country," said Bill Botswick*, who serves as projects coordinator and volunteer mobilizer for the IMB Tokyo organization. "You can feel free to share Jesus all you want."