In 1926 an American-Japanese was assigned to Japan as the Watch Tower Society’s first missionary.

In 1949 the preaching work in Japan got a fresh start. Gilead-trained missionaries began arriving. By August, there were seven missionaries working in Tokyo, and, on an average, nine persons shared in the evangelizing work each month. Six more missionaries arrived in October, five of these starting the preaching work in Kobe.

By 1952 the missionary group had grown to about 50, and several new native Witnesses were entering the pioneer work. The example of the zealous missionaries encouraged more and more of their newly baptized companions to devote themselves full time to Jehovah’s service. Today, 37 years after the first missionaries entered the country, nearly 40 percent of all Witnesses in Japan are in the full-time (pioneer) work each month, with 36,118 reporting even in the short midwinter month of February 1985. Many of the missionaries who shared in this expansion from the start are still serving there, but the present group of 76 missionaries is now like a small ‘drop in the ocean’ of tens of thousands of local pioneers.