Sunday, April 25, 2010

Prayer Request

Hello :) I have a prayer request!

Tomorrow, I am meeting Ya-san with a coworker for our first official Bible Study! [Some background information about her: She is past my parents' age, is Korean, has lived in Japan for about 40 years now, and lives in a very expensive area.] I am a little nervous for our meeting actually because Ya-san is very well off (financially) and the first time I met her, I was completely out of my zone, and I believe I made some rather embarrassing mistakes, which I will not share here :) (run on sentence much?). I don't think I was ever this nervous about things like this, but in Japan, your outward appearance is so important, like SO important, and the culture here can be very formal already, that it just makes me nervous...coupled with the fact that I speak to her in my so so Korean, and I don't know how to handle such huge age gap when I am "teaching" her things...So well, she has expressed a strong interest in learning English specifically and the Bible some as well, but her English ability is low and I'm not sure how strong her interest in the Bible is. Please pray for her heart to be open, for there to be good conversations amongst ourselves.

Sorry if I had lots of run on sentences! I need to sleeeep :) Thanks for your prayers!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

This is a picture for the end of my last post

Great is His Faithfulness!!!

Hey everyone!!! I just wanted to share a little revelation I had tonight that God is faithful!!! Hehe, funny how I can easily forget such obvious things... but tonight I was reminded. During our team meeting tonight, we went around and shared how God has been faithful to us this past year and remembering where we were one year ago. Looking back at where I was then, just arrived on the field, not understanding the culture although I thought I did, I see how God was faithful to me!!! He brought me encouragements when I needed, the right people at the right time, gave me glimpses into how He's working here, provided everything I needed - I didn't need to worry about a thing. And this reminder also comes at such a great time in my life. I have been worried about my future recently. I've never been so worried before in my life I think! It's been affecting me a lot, even disturbing my sleep (although my sleep schedule is pretty bad as it is hehe). Now I realize that I don't need to worry!!! If I just focus on Him and live day to day following Him, I know He will be faithful to provide again, at just the right times :) Yay yippeee!

Random time now...

I have been obsessed with beaches lately. I terribly terribly miss SoCal beaches. When I get back, I will be at the beach as much as possible! My desktop background is of Redondo Beach, my favorite beach to visit :)

Also, I have been having interesting train seat neighbors lately. I've sat next to about a total of 5 men now, who have been acting so strange...some have had lots of twitching, shaking, talking to themselves, and the last guy was drinking beer in the morning next to me!! It smelled so bad!! And it was so strange because 1. you don't drink or eat anything on the trains really...and 2. he was drinking alcohol in the morning!! That's just strange period. And then as if that wasn't enough, after he finishes his beer can, he pulls out a sake cup. I didn't know what he was drinking at first but it sure didn't smell like juice. Later at the convenient store, 711, I saw a shelf of the stuff he was drinking, and it turns out it was all little to go sake cups. How convenient. I'll post a picture of this in another post because I'm having loading problems right now...

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Prayer Answered!! + A Little Sharing Time

Hey!!! So H-san had been out of the country for her spring break but now she is back!!! She and I had kept in contact through email a little bit, but I found out earlier that her phone wasn't in service so besides the pc email exchanges, I didn't have any other way to contact her when she returned to Japan. So I knew her return date was approaching and hoped that she would just contact me since my phone information hadn't changed. Anyways, to make the long story short, I kept missing calls from some unsaved number and it turns out it was her!!!!! It is so encouraging!! because...

I had been a bit discouraged lately. I felt like because I cannot see fruit as a direct result of me being here in Japan, there wasn't a point in me being here. However, God's Word has reminded me again of my job! John 15:4 - "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." I've been so focused on the fruit, that I forgot to really seek Him out to remain in Him. I had forgotten something as simple as that, and I praise God for putting me back on track. Hopefully I don't stray again too soon! :P

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Easter Party Update

So the low down on how the Easter Party went... Thank you all very much for your prayers :)

Well, so I had broken sleep because I was so nervous, and I was nervous throughout the whole morning because there was still much to do to get things in order. Around noon I calmed down after I remembered that hey, this was supposed to be fun! Got some fresh flowers, bags and bags of marshmallows (so expensive here!), and more eggs, hard-cooked some eggs after studying the proper way of cooking them (yes there is a proper way!), had some pasta salad ready from the night before (my first ever and it was a hit hooray!!), gobbled up some of Amanda's amazing chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (seriously, I wish you could try them!), and arranged the room a bit...

The weather was supposed to be sunny and great (it had been COLD and GLOOMY - where IS spring??) but sadly it started raining. I was almost discouraged thinking that people would cancel...went to the Hachiko statue to meet with most of the friends to show them the way to our apartment and guess what? A lot of people came and nobody canceled and several more were already at our apartment! :)

I didn't share the Gospel as much as I wanted to, but there were a few Christians and I heard that there was a lot of sharing going on! Amazing!! I think some relationships were strengthened; one of my friends Sa-san asked me for a hug!!! A new friend that I met made a point to tell me that she would like to study the Bible with me! That has never happened to me here before. I think God was working, and I ask you to continue to pray for the people who attended our party, that they would remember the party and it would lead to a continual curiosity and openness to knowing more about Jesus. Please pray that relationships would be strengthened, that the people that I invited would become even more of my friends...

Thank you!! Enjoy the pictures!

Easter flowers: Red for the blood Jesus spilled for us, White for the forgiveness of our sins, and Yellow for Heaven!!

Children's Bible in Japanese

Flower balloons that Andrew made

Our apartment, nice and clean

Me loving Amanda's cookies

T-san playing chubby bunny

Chinese college students

Dying eggs!

More egg dying!

How pretty

Some of my friends

Some more of my friends!

Everyone take 1!

Everyone take 2!!


Thursday, April 1, 2010

Easter Party Prayer Request

Hello!! On Saturday night, April 3, starting at 7 pm (Saturday 3am Cali time) my roommate and I are throwing an Easter Party for our friends here! We are expecting at least 30 people! It's so exciting but also a little nerve-wracking thinking about the preparation aspect. Please pray for this time, that people will understand the meaning of Easter, that relationships/friendships will be strengthened, and that it will go smoothly and be fun for everyone involved! Thank you!!! :) I will update later with pictures after the event!! :)