The Light Shines

'Seeing Jesus through Us'

Located on the bottom floor of Calvary Chapel in Sequim, Washington, The Ramen Shop is a bustling neighborhood restaurant. It features a storefront, dining area, and service section where patrons create delicious bowls of noodles from an assortment of meats, toppings, sauces, and seasonings in the style of Subway or Chipotle.

But unlike those popular eateries, The Ramen Shop is sustained entirely by donations. The restaurant is co-managed by Anna Potter, a 2021 Moody Bible Institute graduate who wanted to impact her community by planting seeds of the gospel. Anna cofounded a unique food-service ministry that provides free meals for the needy—and the love of Christ to all who enter.

As a nonprofit business with a creative ministry model, the restaurant operates entirely on whatever customers are willing to give for their meal. Anna, who earned an online bachelor’s degree in Integrated Ministry Studies from Moody in 2021, and her pastors have devised a suggested donation structure designed to cover most operating costs.

Following the pay-it-forward principle, patrons can donate $6 to cover the cost of the ingredients, $8 for ingredients and support for the shop’s two paid employees (Anna and her senior pastor), and $12 for two bowls, the second bowl becoming a free meal for someone who can’t pay.

Along with her church’s associate pastor, David Rivers, Anna oversees the daily operations of the restaurant and its team of volunteers. The shop is open for business from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

‘Whoever walks in gets a meal—no questions asked’

Since opening its doors on April 11, 2022, The Ramen Shop has made its mark on the community. Primarily, it helps get free hot meals to people who need them.

“We do about 50 free meals a week,” Anna said. “Most of those are for the homeless in the area. Whoever walks in gets a meal—no questions asked.”

It also gives patrons who pay an opportunity to help care for the less fortunate in the area. Anna says that out of the 200 customers served each week, about 75 percent pay at least $8. “It’s been amazing how generous the community has been,” she said. “Those that donate can impact a life in a tangible way—sometimes giving $20, $40, or even $50 for a meal.”

Perhaps most importantly, The Ramen Shop serves as an effective yet unintrusive way to advance the gospel to its clientele. The restaurant is an openly Christian ministry—Mark 6:34–40 and Matthew 25:35–40 are highlighted on its website. But each bowl of ramen is served with a smiling face and an extra helping of kindheartedness on the side.

“We’re not pushy about preaching in the restaurant,” Anna said. “But the people frequently tell us they feel loved here. We get so many good reviews about the kindness of our volunteers.”

The restaurant offers a prayer box for patrons, and it’s not uncommon for them to ask for prayer right there in the restaurant.

“The amount of prayer requests we get every day is amazing,” Anna said. “They open up to us about their struggles. One day I noticed a woman crying. Her partner was just arrested and now she felt alone. She allowed me to pray with her and comfort her. She seemed to really be touched by that.”

Sometimes these impromptu prayer sessions lead to patrons attending her church upstairs, where further seeds of the gospel can be nurtured.

‘Seeing Jesus through us’

Anna says her online training from Moody was invaluable in working with her pastors to get The Ramen Shop off the ground and running.

“Classes like ‘Planning New Ministry Ventures’ taught me a lot about how a ministry’s mission, vision, and values need to be clear,” she said. “It really helped me understand everything that goes into running a ministry.”

No stranger to virtual classes, Anna was also impressed with how proactively her instructors interacted with students.

“I was surprised with the level of attention of my online teachers and how much time they invested in students,” she said. “I loved moving at my own pace and choosing classes that really interested me. The quality of teaching was amazing.”

Another memorable class was “Ministry to Women in Pain” with Dr. Cheryl Parker. “She really taught me how to have compassion for people,” Anna said. “Sometimes there are no words to tell people—they just need me to listen, even if I can’t fix their problems.”

When asked why she founded The Ramen Shop, Anna said “to be a blessing to people so that they see Jesus through us.” For Anna, her church, and those that volunteer, this means watching God work in people’s lives while bringing the community together through something as simple as a bowl of noodles.

Hope for the Hopeless

When Kevin Cochrane arrived at Moody Bible Institute in 2007, the Grand Rapids, Michigan, native believed God was clearly calling him to become a youth pastor. To his utter surprise, the Lord’s plans took him halfway around the world—to Sendai, Japan.

“I definitely did not go to Moody planning to be a missionary,” Kevin said. “I was planning to be a youth pastor in the States. But in my very first youth ministry class with Dr. Bob MacRae, he shared a statistic that really blindsided me. He said, ‘In the world of youth pastors who have been professionally trained and paid as a full-time youth pastor, about 97 percent of them are serving in North America, primarily the US. But about 97 percent of the world's teenage population lives outside of the US.’”

The statistic prompted Kevin to do some soul searching.

“That really got me thinking,” he said. “Is there a greater need for me to be in the States, or is there a greater need for me to be outside the States?”

‘I finally surrendered to His call’

After attending Moody’s Missions Conference in 2008, Kevin began praying about serving as a long-term missionary. Over the next two years, he participated in several short-term trips with fellow Moody students, serving in the Czech Republic, the Philippines, and Mexico.

“God strongly spoke to me during that time, and I felt Him calling me to be a long-term missionary,” Kevin said. “I resisted for a while, but I finally surrendered to His call on my life.”

During his last year at Moody, God began to burden Kevin’s heart for Japan, a country he had never visited. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Youth Ministry in 2011, he joined SEND International and moved to Tokyo for language school. After language study, Kevin worked with youth in after-school clubs, a camp ministry, and outreach and discipleship programs before moving to Sendai, Japan to focus on church planting.

Bringing hope to the hopeless

Eight years into his ministry in Japan, Kevin felt God was leading him to change missions organizations. He left SEND with fond memories and joined Commission To Every Nation in 2023.

Commission To Every Nation describes Japan as “a modern, safe, and beautiful country. But beneath the surface, there are many problems burdening its people, like a high suicide rate, depression, loneliness, a difficult work culture, fragmented families, and a lack of hope. It is also estimated that between 80–90 percent of people in Japan have never heard the gospel explained to them even once.”

Those “never heard” statistics had impacted Kevin’s original decision to serve in Japan. “It would seem that Japan would be a very ‘easy’ country to reach in the sense that there's no persecution, no political obstacles,” he said. “There’s religious freedom. I even have a religious worker visa, and I’m helping to plant a church. I can share the gospel and give a Bible to anyone who will take one. But beneath the surface, there are a lot of things that make it difficult for people to become Christians in Japan.”

Hurdles to reaching the Japanese

Evangelical Christians account for less than one percent of the population in Japan, while Buddhism and Shintoism comprise the majority of religious practices. Many Japanese would also consider themselves non-religious. “There's a lot of spiritual warfare here,” Kevin said. “I know the Enemy has a grip on this country, and he doesn't want to give it up.”

Kevin left Moody with preparation and skills that he still uses daily in Japan. He is currently serving as interim pastor at a church plant in Sendai while his teammate and family are on home service. Something else has been crucial to reaching the Japanese people: knowing how to explain Scripture and the gospel in a way that is culturally and linguistically understandable without compromising the truth.

“Until you leave your own country and you start speaking in a different language,” Kevin said, “it’s hard to realize that your Christianity and your understanding of the Bible are very much shaped by your environment, your upbringing, and your language.”

Kevin’s education at Moody—made possible by the tuition support of ministry partners—prepared him well for this stark change. “Moody helped me realize that when you get to the mission field, not everybody thinks like Americans do,” he said. “You have to understand that. Otherwise, when you share the gospel, you're not going to be very effective if you don't contextualize it. In that sense, Moody really helped me prepare.”

Learning to contextualize is still a chief emphasis for some of Dr. MacRae’s courses at Moody. “It is hard to go into a new culture, learn a new language, adjust to new foods,” Dr. MacRae said. “But Kevin’s love for Jesus and God’s call upon his life outweighs his concern for these sacrifices.”

Unexpected tool for evangelism

When Kevin’s regular routine dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, he and a few friends began developing evangelistic YouTube videos. With so many Japanese using YouTube and other social media, Kevin saw the strategic value in these platforms to share the gospel.

“God is slowly growing the channel’s reach to more and more Japanese people,” Kevin said.

“Kevin’s videos are evangelistic in nature, spoken in Japanese, and are getting some good attention. I’m so proud of what he is doing, and I’m on his prayer team,” Dr. MacRae said.