Post Vacation

Hey everyone! I'm back in Tokyo after my vacation to Singapore! It was SOO fun!!! (Pictures to be posted soon.) Well we did so much that I'll just write a list off the top of my head of things we did:

- overnight camping on a deserted island where we chased away thieving monkeys who got away with a bag of marshmallows

- ate YUMMY Chinese food

- experienced a bit of America (tear) such as Popeyes (my first time actually) and Sephora (amazing)

- rode the tallest observation ferris wheel in the world

- got some henna done for the first time! yay!

- watched Sherlock Holmes in the theater (this was a big deal since movies in Japan come out like 6 months after America)

- experienced the Night Safari

Well being there, I missed a chance to speak to a Japanese family, and it started stirring up a sense of urgency in my heart. Then fellowshiping with other Christians and hearing stories of how God is working in their lives and surroundings, I was challenged to finish my term well!

So coming back to Tokyo was a great feeling. Tokyo has become very normal to me now, and I missed it. I missed Japanese rice, green tea, my bed, the train systems, Japanese people. I am excited to be here again and I pray that God will give me a great New Year to share Jesus and find those whom He is working in, and to continue building in my relationships with my friends here. Yay!

Love in Christ

Yup, it was officially the coldest day up to date today. Freezing. I don't recall ever having been so cold in my life. My fingers and toes were frozen stubs, and I seriously wondered about frostbite because I couldn't move my fingers. I couldn't grip my 100 yen coin to give to the McD's cashier! It was pathetic and a little scary...but no worries, all 10 of my toes and fingers are with me and warmed back to life! haha

Well so the theme of this entry is love...and love in Christ, because I sure can't love the way I did today on my own power.

Love entered my mind through my roommate Amanda's old roommate, who sent Amanda some Christmas gifts. Amanda checked the mail on our way out to the train station, and the package was sitting in our box, so she just grabbed it and opened it once we got to the station. One of them was an art project with the lyrics from the song "Hosanna" by Hillsong (I think that's the title anyways). The line that mattered was "show me how to love like you have loved me". The train arrived, and a lady stepped off with her hand covering her mouth with a hankie, and then we boarded. You could already sense something was odd because of the way people were acting, lots of weird stares at each other (and people here do not look each other in the eye normally if you're strangers). Then we saw it. The old man in front of us was wearing a black backpack, and there was a pool of throw up swimming around. It was nasty. And I just stood there shocked as I realized that nobody said anything to the man or tried to help. I was angry, thinking that if the man didn't know he had throw up on his backpack, he should be TOLD by the people who DO know. Frustration sets in. I hear a guy next to me saying "doshio?" (what should we do?) which makes me more angry because I'm thinking "DUH TELL THE MAN AND HELP HIM". Amanda and I are the foreigners, the ones whom Japanese people think are inconsiderate, etc. But these people don't know about Christ's love. They don't help strangers out, and they're not going to help out this stranger by touching another stranger's throw up. Anyways, so the Hillsong line crosses my mind, and Amanda and I look for tissues (which we have a lot of because they pass them out here for free EVERYWHERE haha) and she offers her plastic bag, which she used to protect her Bible. Then we proceed to wipe off the yuck and put it in the plastic bag. And then we sanitized our hands. There was an older lady next to us who kept talking to me in Japanese until I told her I don't understand Japanese. But I could figure out what she was saying a little, and she helped us even though we didn't communicate with each other. She explained to the man what we were doing multiple times. She was nice. Everyone else just watched. Yup.

But the feelings and thoughts that arose in me at that time, permeated throughout the rest of my day. As I stood out in the FREEZING (I promise you it was deathly cold) cold passing out Christmas CDs and Hope dvd offers, I felt the urgency and the need to press on even though I thought I'd have to cut off my toes (haha, I'm sorry I'm so dramatic, but I could NOT feel my toes for the whole time and you can't judge unless you were there - only Amanda and Jude arrowed). I loved being able to finally speak to eldery folk, who I never get any other chance to make any contact with. I loved the one time when a man came back to specifically ask about the Hope dvd offer - yes! I loved it when one person would bravely ask me for what it was I was handing out (this is rare) and then 5 people following each wanted one too haha.

There was a lot of distractions going on at this time though. I've never seen so many people in that amount of land, all competing to be over heard and to pass out things. We were one of the tissue people, except what we were passing out was far more important than tissue hehe. It was very hard to give out our CDs and Hope dvd offers amongst all of that and in the cold, so please continue to be praying for us! I have only 3 more days for this and I don't want to miss any opportunity God might have in store for me! Yay for Christmas!! This year's is extra special for me somehow :)

Christmas in Tokyo

Sooo it's officially winter I'd say. Hehe. I found online that winter here in Tokyo is from December to February. Noooo....I can't believe it has only started. It is so cold. Unless you're walking briskly and the sun is out.

Ok no more rambling. So for ministry, we started our Santa Project today! We went all the way out to Tachikawa, about 1.25 hoursish from my place, and our supervisor dressed up as Santa and we were his helpers. We all passed out Christmas music cds and also a Hope dvd offer (it's an offer for a free dvd that explains the whole Gospel in good depth but it's not too long, and it is in Japanese, AND it's really not cheesy! haha really!). Altogether we passed out over 1000 of both in a little over 2 hours! I had 2 interesting conversations. One lady, H-san told me that she was Christian too! And although she spoke all in Japanese, we somehow communicated hehe and I gave her my email, so hopefully she will email me because I gathered that she was interested in studying the Bible with me! :) She told me that her friend who is half Japanese who is also Christian shared Jesus with her and she became Christian because of her. So yay! Keep praying for Japanese Christians to continue sharing their faith with others! The second guy was this old man who was so so sweet and kind. He told me he used to be Christian but decided to be Buddhist because Buddhists focus more on world peace. Well, I told him that it was a great goal in life, world peace, but when and how would it ever be achieved? I told him that because of sin, world peace will never happen the way people want. But that in the midst of all the craziness and turmoil brought about by sin, Jesus was sent to provide peace for our souls. He is also called Prince of Peace, ain't He? :D So please pray for the Japanese Christians who are struggling in their faith, that they would be grounded in His Word, and that they would be able to find a group of fellow Christians they can share their life with.

Here is our Santa and Andrew, another journeyman.

These three pictures are of the Christmas tree in Ginza. The lights change colors as you can see :)

This is at the top of a department store in one of the train stations. Pretty Christmas decorations are up everywhere here.

Please continue to pray for the Santa Project! That people would mail in the dvd offers and their hearts would be open to the message of Christmas yay! It's also really cold outside so maybe you can throw in a prayer about that too hehe. Thanks everyone!