Mariana Nesbitt

Mariana Nesbitt is a missiologist and OMF International member. It was not long after she came to Christ that she committed her life to world evangelism.

She and her husband Jim were permitted to spend 25 years as field missionaries to Japan. All her studies and life choices were centred around obeying Jesus. So high school teacher training and educating was followed by study at the Bible Institute of Kalk Bay.

From Cape Town she and her husband Jim, did 2 years of Japanese language and culture study in Japan.

10 years in the snowbound north were followed by a 15 year period near Tokyo. Everywhere she went she shared the gospel with young mothers, Japanese interpreters ’groups, university students, high school pupils, city workers, elderly friends, and neighboring couples.

Mariana was drawn to further study at UNISA and SATS after a conversation with a Zen practitioner who asked piercing questions that she could not answer. Her Master’s dissertation was on Japanese Ancestral Practices: Creating a Contextualised Teaching Tool.

Mariana regularly teaches on mission and culture and has presented cultural seminars to hotels and game lodges in South Africa. She established a Missiology Forum while in Tokyo and this has proved to be a draw-point for missionaries wanting to upgrade their knowledge in missiology.

Her enjoyment of Silk Painting led to 3 evangelistic Silk Painting exhibition and classes where she was able to draw close to friends and witness in an unusual way.

Mariana has left part of her heart behind in Japan, but now is firmly rooted in the Cape Town area. She is married and the mother of 2 children.

Her passions include global Christianity, world religions, church history, sociology, church-planting in Japan and preparing and equipping workers for cross-cultural living and preaching

When she is not busy with local community development, she is writing books on missiology. She has published Jesus for Japan. Bridging the Cultural Gap to Christianity, and Japanese Redemptive Analogies. She has a few books stored in her computer and cannot wait to complete and publish them.