We're in Hokkaido!! :)

Here's the email I wrote just a little while ago to thank you all SO much for the encouraging messages and all the prayer support you've so generously loved us with leading up to and during the mission! It was a tough flight but praise God that He's kept us safe!



Here are also some photos I took today :)

As I type this email, I'm sitting in the bedroom that we've been generously provided with in the OMF Sapporo Guesthouse. The missionaries who we have met and have welcomed us here have been so gracious in their love and provision despite us being complete strangers, it's truly amazing that I have family here on the other side of the world because of who we are in Christ! Many of them have been serving in Japan for 18 - 30 years!

We'll be staying here for the next few days during orientation as we learn more about Japanese culture and everything before we leave for Omagari (another town just outside of Sapporo).

Some things that another missionary here from Germany, Karin told us tonight over dinner was that:

• for many Japanese students, there isn't the need to ask why they're living anymore - it's more just living for the day, or, when they lose their security in their job or fail in their studies they don't have anything to go back to anymore, and so the suicide rates are quite high here :(
  
• as there is a great group mentality in Japan, when some of them become Christians they leave one group and join another (the 'Christian' group) and the churches here are used to being a minority so often they don't want to stick out so much
• being a pastor in Japan is not socially accepted - so if people become pastors they give up their career (also because it doesn't pay well) - someone on the street most likely wont know what a pastor does
• the Japanese people have been a bit more open to internationality but for a while parents would tell their children NOT to have any religion at all because of the Sarin gas attack on Tokyo subway
• that you can't just bring in change - it's all about trust and having someone people trust invite you into the group

Praise God for:

• His provision and guidance in bringing us!
• the hospitable missionaries here who are so willing to serve with all their hearts and all their strength
• the love and care within the team that God has blessed us with
  

Please pray:

• for the people of Japan, for their eyes to be opened to God's love and His sovereignty
  
• that He will protect us from the work of Satan and that we will be prayerfully focused on God's word throughout the mission
• for more pastors and leaders to be raised up from Japan to lead and run the churches here
  
• for more students in the Hokkaido Bible Institute (which has about 6 people atm)
• that our team leader will arrive safely on Tuesday

Thanks guys for your constant partnership in the gospel :) Off to sleep now! :D gooodnight!

PS: oops, forgot my camera's data cable and the external harddrive at home! I'll ask someone else for their photos tomorrow :)