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| Wow, finally, I have my computer back and running! So I promised a big/long update so I guess I have to update 3 weeks worth of things that happened here. I can honestly say that I learned a lot about myself, other people, and what God has been doing despite me knowing or not. Things seem to get busier and busier, but I think that no matter how tired I get from doing things or meeting people, I need to just suck it up and go strong in this last stretch before I go home. |
I’ll split each part by weeks, so the first week…
11/8-11/14 [Introspective Thinking]
So we went to Kyoto with some Jesus Soldiers to Arashiyama (嵐山) to hang out and see the Autumn leaves, there weren’t too many, but it still was a really nice place. I am just glad that we were able to just go out and hang out together and fellowship. I think it’s really important to understand who’s on your team and know who they are while we are doing ministry and when we are having fun. I can honestly say that they are great people to just be around with. I learn a lot about myself through them, because back home I am always around the same people, I don’t really have other people to notice things that I always unconsciously do. 
Things at the schools were going really well actually, I got to talk with some of the foreign exchange students at Gaidai, who I’m uncertain if they really understand Christianity or their background with church in general, so I had a really good talk with some of them. Kandai is actually surprisingly good this week, because some people we met during the school festival came out to meet us that next week! Praise God, they haven’t come since, but at least they came out to meet us at least once and they know that we are on campus. I pray that God will continue to open people’s hearts towards not only us, but to God. I had an opportunity to lead our Rhino cell group because Justin went to Hawaii with his wife for a week. It was certainly interesting. I didn’t really feel like I was leading, and maybe I need to be a bit more bold or even just be frank at time. I felt like I should have been a bit stronger because I felt overpowered by the other members in my group. They aren’t bad people and they have no intention of doing that, but just as an afterthought I believe that I have been showing signs of being a pushover.
So that week I have been just in an introspective mood. Who am I when I am around this person/people, or what do I do if I’m in this situation. A lot of that kind of thinking… It was just a thinking kind of week for me.
11/15-11/21 [Not To Us]
It truly is not about us, but all glory goes to God for being who He is. I can’t think of any words that comes close to my thankful heart for everything He has done for me and for the people that I love. This current group of Jesus Soldiers, though all are really different, I feel like we work pretty well together and there are no big problems. This is not saying the previous Jesus Soldiers I worked with were not good or had problems, but I don’t really know how to explain it besides saying that we have a good group of people here.
On the 15th it was Sarah’s birthday and Sam and I made her go out late at night to stall time for Saya and Jiah to set up and decorate her room. At midnight we go to her room to surprise her and we went to Nara after that. Nara was a beautiful place and it was a lot of fun! The autumn leaves are a bit nicer now and just the area we went was very nice. I hope she really enjoyed her birthday away from home and that it felt a little bit like home for her. It’s weird that even when I go back home that she won’t be too far from home compared to those who live in different countries or states. 
This week I also went to a different school since Justin was in Hawaii still. I went to Handai University; I haven’t been here since the very very first time I came to Japan in 2006. Look wise there wasn’t much change, but when we were actually doing ministry and outreaching here, in the beginning was pretty tough, but I think it wasn’t as bad for me now that I have been here for a while, but I could see Deoni and Sarah kind of shocked by what happened. So apparently there was a girl and a couple of her friends that came last week to the club time, and the Handai team was very excited about it and one of the girls that they met were really excited too. She even emailed Sarah about looking forward to seeing her on Wednesday and even brought two of her friends! However, after about 5 minutes, one of the girls that came last week told her to come out and talk with her for a second. As soon as she came back, the whole atmosphere changed… she wasn’t paying attention and she kept texting her friends sitting next to her to leave and they left halfway of the time saying that they needed to meet their other friends. Obviously, the other girl told her something and we were just shocked at what happened. (This school had a really big problems with cults a couple of years back and totally banned any kind of religious activity and freshmen have to talk a class about cults too in their first semester.) I didn’t want this to affect the whole day so I tried my best to look for someone to talk with and God led me to this girl sitting by herself in the cafeteria. So I said the usual, “Hi, can you speak English?” and she said a little bit, but her English was quite good, so we asked if we could sit down and talk and she was really excited and said yeah! We ended up talking with her for 30-40 minutes straight! Praise God! Even though it was one person that we talked with, but it was a real good time! She apparently came out that next week too :D
Friday, after Big Wave, we went Street Evangelizing for the first time! It was funny, the whole morning, it was nice weather, sunny with a little bit of clouds, but when we went out it started to rain… I was told to play the guitar and such, so this was the worse possible condition we could do this in. I prayed to God, if you really want us to go out and do this, then I will change my attitude about it and be positive no matter what happens! We had three locations to try and pass out flyers and such, but as soon as I started playing the guitar we were told to leave. I was continuously praying as all this was happening, and when we moved to the 2nd spot, not only was there a covering from the rain, but even though the police saw us, they didn’t do anything! Praise God! It was so much fun!! I think God wanted to see how my heart was throughout this whole thing and instead of letting the weather or cold bring my spirits down, instead I was really excited to go out and play. I just threw away any sense of pride or self-consciousness I had and surrendered it to God. What an amazing experience. If you have Facebook, there is a video of us doing some stuff, but I don’t have any pictures of it unfortunately.
Finally, on that Saturday we had an event for the FFN (Friends Forever Network) campus ministries! (Yes, the name was changed from “Funky Clubs” to “FFN”) We went to Spocha! (It’s like a miniature version of all these sports + video games, etc. for 3 hours!) Around 25 people came out and it was a good time to just get to meet the other school’s students and see them not only interact with us, but with each other.
It was certainly a long and eventful week, but this is only the 2nd week, on to the last and most recent week!
11/22-11/28 [Thankful]
In the States, this past week was Thanksgiving week, but in Japan, it was Labor Day on Tuesday, so we decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner on that day! It was potluck style and we all made some stuff and brought it for dinner! It was so good! The only thing I have to say is that I wish I could have eaten more, but there were quite a bit of people who joined us and we couldn’t really get too much. I made garlic and cheese mashed potatoes, Justin made the turkey and Ketchup meatloaf, Sarah made onion rings, Jiah cooked croissants with cheese or jam in it, Kyle bought the drinks, Deoni helped with the veggies and such, Sam helped make the stuffing, and Saya and Yoko made this Smörgåstårta (a Swedish cake thingy, but its not sweet, look it up on Wikipedia if you want). It was just a good time! Very thankful for J-House, the Jesus Soldiers, my family, friends, the list could go on.
Campus ministries were good too! Met some more people and they said they were happy to meet us and said they wanted to hang out with us this coming week! Praise God!
Just one more thing I want to say before I stop boring all of you who are reading this (if you still are). I was having a hard time with finances these past 3 months, but God always provides me with enough. I mean, it didn’t happen just like that, it took restraint on my part and wisdom in managing my money and what to do with it, who I can use it for, etc. This month especially was tough, but God got me through it! Hallelujah…seriously, I am so thankful to God!
Thank you all for reading this humongous post! I hope that it was somewhat encouraging or as long as it fills you in with what I am doing here, then that is good enough for me! I can’t believe December is coming so soon~ I can’t believe my one-year here is almost up.
I do have one prayer request:
Please pray for me to receive wisdom from God to write two messages that I have to do on my last Sunday over here. I have to do two 10 minute messages + translation so 20 minutes total, but yeah, it was kind of a shock to me when they asked me to do this, so I need prayer for first of all what to speak on, then just wisdom to write this in an encouraging/empowering way on my last Sunday in Japan! Thanks!!
Whew, that was long!
