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Prominent Assyrians
Kenny Joseph, Evangelist
Kenny Joseph is an Assyrian Christian missionary, born in Chicago, Illinois on October 30, 1928. His father Samuel Noah Joseph and mother, Martha Adams Joseph fled to America after a holocaust when more than 180,000 Christians were massacred by Turkish Muslims during WWI.
In 1947 he answered a call to Gen. Douglas MacArthur to volunteer to help rebuild Japan following the war. In April 1951, Joseph went to Japan as a T.E.A.M. (The Evangelical Alliance Mission) and Y.F.C. (Youth For Christ) missionary-evangelist. He is currently the president of REAP (Reinforcing Evangelists and Aiding Pastors) Mission Tokyo. He is known in Japan as "Edokko Senkyosi", missionary with Tokyoite spirit.
On the fourteenth day of his voyage from San Fransisco to Yokohama, he met a man named Kiyoshi Togasak, the Christian businessman and publisher of the Nippon Times. It was with Kiyoshi that Kenny received his first offering from the hand of a Japanese. Kenny and Kiyoshi led two joint services during the voyage, and Kiyoshi took an offering and dedicated it to Kenny's future work in Japan. That is how Kenny has been surviving for the last fourty seven years. Kenny has lived by faith, spreading the Gospel among the people of Japan.
On August 24, 1955 he married Lila Way Finsaas, and they are the parents of four young men, they are, Children - Kenneth Phillip, Robert Samuel, James Orvin, Mark Scott.
Evangelist Joseph and Asian laymen held the last evangelistic crusade in Saigon, Viet Nam, before it fell to Communism. He preached in a crusade in Bhopal, India, site of the Union Carbide poison gas catastrophe where 24,000 died in one night.
During his 44 years of Asia ministry, Missionary Joseph has helped publish over 120 million pages of Christian literature in Japanes, Korean, Chinese, Tagalog, Thai, Malayalum, Indonesian, Laotian and English. He balloon-drops Bible Literature over Red China. This SOS Ad-Vangelism project has resulted in 45,000 Asians professing faith in Christ. His work with the Native and Little Church Crusade helped build 43 churches. He shows a professional 16-minute video of his ministry or uses an overhead projector to illustrate Asian and Japanese evangelism, followed by a press conference question time.
Rev. Joseph's articles are published frequently in Japanese newspapers and magazaines including the Japan Times as well as FREINDS, a publication of the Higashi Kurume International Friendship Club. All his writings refer to his Assyrian ancestry and the great contributions of the Assyrians through the Assyrian Church of the East's Christian evangelical missions.
For more information you can contact:
REAP
P.O. Box 488
La Mirada, CA 90637-0488
Or Rev. Kenny Joseph Press, at
REAP Mission
7-39-6 Higashi Oizumi
Nerima Ku, Tokyo, Japan 178
Telephone: 011-81-03-3922-6402
Fax: 011-81-03-3922-7655
- 1947-51: Japan Missionary with The Evangelical Alliance Mission, Japan (TEAM)
- 1950: M.A., Fuller Theological Seminary
- 1951: Director Hendersonville Youth for Christ, N.C.
- 1951-66: Director, Reinforcing Evangelists and Aiding Pastors Mission (REAP) Tokyo
- 1955: International Evangelist
- 1955-59: Professor, Tokyo Christian Seminary
- 1959: Ordained to Ministry Southern Baptist Convention
- 1959: Founder Japanese Evangelical Overseas Mission, JEOM,Tokyo
- 1959: International coordinator Japan Christian Council Churches
- 1959-65: Associate Editor of Japan Journal
- 1960: Editor-REAP-Ketsudan Quarterly
- 1961-65: Japan Harvest
- 1965-66: Director Holy Land Research Society
- 1966: Vice Chairman Evangelical Missionary Assn. Japan
- 1967: President, Japan Bible Christian Council
- 1967: International coordinator Asia and World Christian Lay Association (ALCA)
- 1967: World Christian Anti-Communism Assn. (WCACA)
- 1967: Author-Missionary Language Handbook, Vol. 1
- 1979-82: Visiting A.V. Professor, various seminaries, Director A.I.M., Assian institute of Missions
- 1982-91: Editor-REAPers Digest, Member Japan Evangelists Fellowship Assoc. Missions, Republican, Clubs-Stamp, Tokyo, Tops, JEMA, JEA, Professor and Director of Evangelism, Japan Chistian College, Tokyo
- 1985: Evangelism- Theory and Practice, Personal Evangelism 1 and 2
- B.A. Moody Bible Institute Bob Jones University
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