Sakura Season has Started!

I can't believe it's that time of the year again in Japan!! I arrived almost one year ago!! I came at such a good time, the sakura were here to welcome me! :)

These pictures are from Ueno Park! I wish it would just get warm now!!

My dear roomie and I :)

There were definitely a lot of people! And all the places under the trees had been roped off/saved!

Volunteer team from Mississippi

Ghibli Museum

But it's pronounced jiburi hehe and in Japanese it's actually called
like Ghibli's Forrest. I hate when translations are not completely
accurate...I took this picture before I found out I'm not supposed to
take any photos. Hehe so here for your viewing pleasure. Totoro
stained glass hehe!

I got went with my friend K-san. Please pray for her that the Holy
Spirit would work in her life to see that she needs Jesus. She told me
that she thinks it is enough to read her Bible and pray to God for
now. I told her that the Bible says that to know God you need to go
through Jesus. We had a good bible study about Easter. Do you realize
that people here think Easter is all about eggs and rabbits. Goodness.

Praying about Easter for All the Different Time Zones

Hey! Yea so Easter is coming up soon! :) I posted about Easter Party ideas earlier...however I wanted to tack on additional prayer requests.

Well, I realized today that all over the world, people are getting ready to celebrate this special day. Many brothers and sisters all over the world are praying for this time leading up to this special day, for boldness to share about Jesus. Would you join in praying?

I'm not asking you to tuck away this prayer request in the back of your mind though. I'm asking you to tack it on your bathroom mirror, on your dashboard, or something - let it be on the forefront of your thoughts! Pray, pray, pray! Let us not let this time slip away. Every minute is precious. Every minute, somewhere in the world, in all the different time zones, God is working, providing opportunities for people whose hearts don't yet know freedom to know His truth. Any opportunity, let's grab it to pray that people around the world will learn about the hope they can have, and that they will take it. That the widow will be comforted, that the orphan will find love, that the single working mother with children will find hope, that the Japanese girl will find the courage to break free from what binds her from being a follower of Christ, that they will all find freedom and salvation in Christ! Please pray for His workers to be empowered by His Spirit, to make His name known.

I will be praying for all His people around the world to use this time for His glory. That includes those of you back at home too ;) Let's share the good news with everyone!!!

Them Japanese kit kats are so fun

Easter Party Ideas Anyone?

Hey! So my roomie and I are having an Easter Party on April 3 for all our friends here! :)

We want to use this time to share the gospel and also for it to be a fun time where our friends can gather and meet each other. We plan to dye eggs of course, but besides that I was wondering if any of you had an idea we might be able to incorporate into this shindig?

Do you have any ideas of how we can share the gospel?

Do you have any party ideas?

Thank you~

A Little Excerpt

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Well, compared to my amazing day a few days ago, today I had an incredibly burdensome day where I was so discouraged. I wrote an email to someone pouring my heart out. Here is an excerpt from that with some minor adjustments:

It really DOES make a difference to spend time in God's word and to pray to him. Something basic like that, people just don't get. I just want people I care about to live their life the way that God intended. How amazing that would be. To get their heads and lives out of the cloud. People say they don't know where to turn. I tell them and it just goes in one ear and out the other. They waste their time on things that will fade away. People are talking all about the Oscars and it's such a big deal. But people don't even remember last year's oscar winners, etc. Who CARES? There are people dying every day without even one chance at hope because lazy mediocre people care more about their own plans for living, because Satan the god of lies has led them to believe that just thinking about things they should do for God's kingdom is good enough and not actually going out there and doing it. "Oh i'll support the missionary". But you know what? They're not even doing that. Support is a verb like to be. it's not supported. You gave one offering a year ago? you prayed for 10 minutes last month? How shameful.

Please, do something.

Today I was in a train that jolted to a stop because of a suicide. Everyone inside the train was stuck in the train for about 20 minutes. People were angry because their schedules were disrupted. But what I thought was oh no, a life that has been lost. How bad could life be to choose to end it? And in such a manner? And what are we doing to spread hope? To give a chance at eternal joy? I'm sorry but being sad about it or thinking about it does not help any. We must get on our knees and repent and ask God for his grace and mercy. Go be filled with Jesus and share that with others. Stop being mediocre. Just stop.

This One is Funnier than Normal

A Doraemon Book in えいご

Now I can see what people love about this guy! :)

An Incredibly Enjoyable Ministry Day

Wow. I'd say that today was one of the best ministry days I've ever had here so far. Completely enjoyable.

I met up with Sa-san, the girl who moved out of Tokyo, and her two best friends Ka-san and Mi-san. She was visiting Tokyo and wanted to meet with me also yay! I was so honored to be meeting her two best friends. They are all my age, which made it more fun I think, and she has known one since high school and the other since kindergarten! I got to sit at a cute cafe in Shinjuku with three great Japanese girls! What good times!

Mi-san had to leave after an hour, and after she left, Sa-san, Ka-san, and I got to study the Bible together. Sa-san has been a seeker for many months and she knows a lot now. She studies the Bible on her own, and even had a deep question to ask me from her personal studies, which definitely made me think hard hehe. I was nervous about what we should study with Ka-san around because Sa-san had mentioned that Ka-san was Buddhist and mainly wanted to learn English. So we went over Acts 17:24-31 (part of our Hope Bible study) and afterwards, Ka-san asked what was next! She wanted more! So then we went over the Christmas story of Jesus' birth. I explained who Jesus was, why He had to die on the cross, and what Easter was (because we're hoping to have an Easter party at our place next month!).

Then we did a little shopping and ate at a great Vietnamese restaurant that we discovered!! Definitely going there again soon!!! おいしかった！Actually probably tomorrow for lunch with my roommate haha!

Today was gloomy all day and rainy off and on, but it was one of the most satisfying days I've ever had here in Japan. Praise the Lord, and lift up prayers to Him to continue His work in these girls' lives. Please pray that Ka-san's heart would be sensitive to the Gospel and that she would think about the conversations we had about Jesus. Please pray for Sa-san. I am so thankful for her! She wants to continue our friendship, and she has introduced me to many of her good friends now, wanting them to also hear about the Gospel although she herself isn't a Christian. Isn't that amazing? Please pray for Mi-san that God would prepare her heart to have good soil that when she hears she will accept the message of Jesus.

Please also pray for K-san. I met with her on Thursday night and we had a good time of catching up since I have not seen her since December. She is graduating next month and is waiting for the results of her license exam. Although we got to do a little Bible study together, I wonder how her heart is. I made a mistake of not praying for God to prepare her heart before I met her and I think that really affected our Bible study. Well, I learned from that and I made sure to pray extra hard today when I was meeting with those girls! No wonder I had such a good day! :)

2 Verses

My team has a weekly team meeting every Tuesday night. Two verses that our team leader shared with us tonight spoke powerfully to me and I just wanted to pass it along.

"You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." James 4:4

"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:13-14