Bill and Ann Moore
1478-201 Shironomae
Mikage Cho
Higashinada Ku
Kobe 658-0056
Japan
Email: Bill and Ann Moore

Bill and Ann Moore have served as people in mission with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in partnership with the Reformed Church of Japan (RCJ) in Hiroshima and currently in Kobe, Japan. In 1985, the Moores arrived in Japan and spent two years in Kobe for full-time language study. They then moved to Hiroshima where Bill worked in new church development and evangelism, preaching and teaching in five churches in the Hiroshima Prefecture. Since 1995, they have been in Kobe where Bill is the organizing pastor of a new church development for the RCJ in the northern suburbs of Kobe-Osaka called the Nishitani Chapel. The RCJ was founded in 1946 and, though it's a small church, it has a strong missionary vision. Ann is a partner in ministry with Bill assisting with the work in evangelism and new church development.

Bill and Ann write of the difficulty of being Christian in Japan, "Over our years of service in Japan we have been constantly impressed, inspired, and humbled by the devotion of believers here to Christ and his Church. It is more difficult to remain faithful to Jesus Christ in Japan than in many other places. Christians, making up less than one percent of the population of Japan, are a small minority in a nation where it is psychologically difficult to be different from those around you. Religiosity is generally a matter of observing the traditional rituals of Buddhism and Shinto and religious commitments generally never take precedence over the demands of human relationships. Therefore, to be a follower of Jesus Christ and to owe supreme allegiance to him means to go against the "grain" of Japanese culture and society. In the eyes of most Japanese, for a person to become a Christian means that he or she has given up some of their "Japaneseness" and gone after a "Western" religion, one that rightly does not belong in Japan."

Letters from
William and Ann Moore

• December 2007
• September 2007
• November 2005
• November 2004
• May 2003

Bill is the son of Presbyterian missionaries to Korea. While a student at Davidson College, in Davidson, North Carolina, where he earned his BA in sociology, Bill spent his junior year at the International Christian University in Tokyo. Later, during his doctoral studies at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virgina, where he earned his D.Min., Bill spent a term as a volunteer in mission as a student pastor and English teacher at Soongsil University in Seoul, Korea. After graduation, Bill became pastor of Little Falls Presbyterian Church in Falling Waters, West Virginia. Bill and Ann spent four years in West Virginia before beginning their service in Japan.

Ann was born in Korea. She studied Japanese as a student in Japan and received her B.S. in business administration from Meiji University in Tokyo. She has worked for a Japanese trading company and later as an English tutor in Hagerstown, Maryland.

The Moore's have two children living with them in Japan, Paul and Sarah. Another child, John, is in college in the United States. Bill is a clergy member of Shenandoah Presbytery and Ann is a member of Little Falls Presbyterian Church in West Virginia.

Birthdays:
Bill - April 24
Ann - March 12
John - February 17
Paul - November 10, 1986
Sarah - February 2, 1988