Past few days

Sorry for the lack of posts for the past few days! Lack of internet connections and just busy days in general. Praise God for the Japanese homestays who really showed their hospitality and love to us!

Friday:

• The team had devotion on the book of Jonah, the runaway witness
• The team prepared for the English Christmas party together, practising the song Indescribable - we struggled a lot with which song to sing and singing together with the piano - it was quite tense especially because everyone was tired
• Tracy and Shirley had dinner together with Mr 'and Mrs Kobayashi, a lovely cute couple. Please pray for Mr Kobayashi who came to church with his wife for a few months but has withdrawn because of uncertainty whether Christianity is for him. Praise God for Mrs Kobayashi who after 10 years of bible study with Jehovah's Witness, came to know the truth about Christ in the bible. She said that she felt it was weird that they never did bible study beyond parts of the bible and apparently the Japanese translation was really bad.

Saturday:

• The team did a devotion together on Abraham, the faithful witness. Praise God for his example in his willingness to go wherever God wanted him to go - even when he didn:t know where it would be, and he took his family and packed everything and went, trusting God -
• English Christmas Party: praise God for the 30 adults there and 15 children who came. We played a couple of games, sang Indescribable and Cerise did her testimony. Praise God that God allowed the team to meet many of the students of the English classes that the church holds during the week and please pray that as they study the bible they will see that it isn't just words but they see God's glory through His word
• The team went to their respective homestays and we were greeted with lovely dinners :) Tracy and Shirley had Okonomiyaki and the Hirose family invited many friends over!

Sunday:

• The team attended the Omagari Worship Service and praise God for Hirano-san who attended church for the first time! Many kids came too. The message was on John 3 about Nicodemus and how you can only go to heaven if you are born again in the Spirit and getting to know Jesus. Saeko-san delivered the message and she used the illustration of a man who had a headache and decided to see a famous doctor about it. While sitting in his waiting room, he talked to other patients and tried out a lot of self help methods to try and ease his headache himself and the man left before he got his name called. Shortly after he left, the nurse called his name. Saeko-san explained that sometimes we are like that too, we fail to fully trust God and place everything into His hands and we just try to do things our own way to try and help ourselves - relying on our actions instead of God's grace.
• Pray that God may be raising up leaders from the church, especially godly men who submit to God's will in their lives. Pray that churches will invest resources in training their members to teach the bible faithfully and truthfully to others, and to learn to pass the gospel to their friends and the next generation.
• Pray for the bible colleges here. We met Matsumi's sister Hiromi who goes to bible college here in Hokkaido where she studies the bible. Pray for more students to go to these institutions where they learn to study the bible and teach it to others. Also pray that they may provide courses for laypeople in churches to be trained, whether it be by conferences or by correspondence courses.
• The church surprised Shirley with birthday cakes and a card at church lunch - she is so thankful and grateful!
• Grace, Carson, Tracy and Shirley then left to go to Mrs Kano's house with Susan. Praise God for Mrs Kano's generosity in providing  newly renovated vacant house for the missionaries to live in during mission and for the hospitality and provision of the Hiraoka church members who lent us stuff to use in the house! 

Monday:

• Our host families took us around on our day off
• Shirley will blog about her 20th birthday at her blog - shirtlek.blogspot.com :) IT WAS SO AWESOME!!! THANK YOU GOD! and thank you for all your birthday wishes even when I'm here!!

 Tuesday:

• We had a team devotion on Jesus - the perfect witness, Praise God for giving us a servant king who understands how we feel and who intercedes for us forever. 
• We spent the rest of the day preparing for the Australian Christmas Culture night on Saturday. Please pray that many people will come and hear the message with open hearts!
• Please pray for humility and unity as a team as we prepare. It is so hectic and stressful and it is becoming so hard sometimes to stay positive, non-complaining, flexible and patient with each other. Please pray that we can help remember that we are here to serve GOD first and hence serving others, and not be served, that we be content and joyful in everything God has provided. Please pray for energy and focus on God too! 

thanks guys! :D - this blog is really stripped down and Shirley will blog in more detail on her blog. Thanks!! 

fmZERO: seeing God's work

It really has been an encouragement to read Shirley's posts. Really funny to see those teammates photos!

Why don't I tell u more about our everyday life as part of this mission for the fmZERO team? Well, Sam & Clare are almost like my real younger sister - Amy & younger brother -Chris back home. Both share the same years of birth and drives the same type of cars as my siblings. We have called our team name as ASC which is Ask with a C and it stands for Ada Sam Clare.

We have known each other quite well during our time together now. Been great how God bring us all three who never knew each other before to this ministry! We are all very different people all united to do Christ's work here in Japan.

It has been an eye-opening experience to work together with Sarah & Karin and seeing how they are links in bringing ppl to know Christ. :)

Typical week:
*daily (almost) morning devotions with Karin. Really help us to start the day asking for God's help. We are reading Phillipians & a Japan prayer book.
* English Bible study on Wed nights
* attending Sarah's classes on Bible teaching & English teaching at uni. Today's class re Bible teaching was on the death of Jesus. English class at Hokudai focuses on developing English oral skills.
* attend clubs held at uni & befriending uni students.

It has been a lot of fun so far!

Prayer requests:
There are lots of Christmas events organised by churches happening in Japan in Dec! Please pray that they can be good opportunities for Christians to witness to non-Christians. Pray for God to use these opportunities to bring ppl to him. Pray for pastors and leaders to be given power to preach the gospel msg faithfully.

Next Tues, there is a special fmZERO Christmas event. Please pray for God to prepare the hearts of the students to come! Please pray for guidance as we prepare over the next few days.

Shall write more about the kind of people we meet another time!

Happy birthday Shirley!!!!!!! Hope you have a great day!! :) Love ada, clare and sam

Funny teammates

WEDNESDAY: PRAYERWALKING & MOTHERS’ & KIDS’ ENGLISH CLASS

Today after team devotion, we hung out a bit at Yume Plaza, a community facility where community events are held and kids play after school. Carson and Grace debriefed with Tracy (as the rest of the team had already done it last night) and we found out that the lady that owned the café there was going to come to the Christmas Party on Saturday. Please pray that she’ll be able to come, hear the gospel and know Christ. She’s a lovely lady who seems to know everyone in the area J

Then we went to this restaurant that served buffet – this was our thank you lunch from Oomagari church :D the restaurant used the produce grown on the farm that the restaurant was part of, and the food there was really, really delicious! As we walked in, the head chef was holding the flyer of the event (with our faces on it) as he welcomed us in :O later on we took a photo with him. Please pray that all the employees of the restaurant will be able to come into the Australian Christmas Outreach event together, as the restaurant doesn’t open in winter for dinner.

PRAYER WALKING

Afterwards we went prayerwalking in prayers around the area – Cerise and Karen were with Steve, praying for the older part of Oomagari and passing a lot of the homes of seekers and members of the church that they prayed for. They said they saw a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses also roaming around. Please pray for the people of Japan to know the truth about Christ and not be distracted by Satan’s lies.

There is quite a huge number of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons in Japan and many cults and we found it surprising that they’d convinced the shy and cautious Japanese who they converted to be so pressing and forward to other Japanese people. The lady who did bible study with a Jehovah’s Witness for 10 years said that when you get baptised into Jehovah’s Witnesses you have to sign a contract agreeing to go doorknocking and stuff, and the JWs here have been quite pushy and persistent day after day as they doorknock and often the Japanese feel that out of politeness they are obligated to let them in to talk to them and it’s often hard to break out of relationships even if they are bad. This is why the evangelical churches here avoid doorknocking because the Japanese will often firstly ask Christians whether they’re JW/Mormons…

Grace and Carson went to pray for Yume Plaza where the church holds most of its events while Tracy and I prayerwalked along the main roads for the businesses and the customers and employees inside it, focusing on the supermarket.

Prayerwalking is something I’d like to encourage back home because it really helps us see (if God allows us to) our suburb and our city the way God sees it – not as somewhere fun to hang out at or an awesome place to shop but as a missionfield where there are so many competing idols for our love and worship. It’s pretty much just praying as we walk but trying not to be too obvious but like we’re talking to each other, and we prayed about anything we saw – like this water machine where we prayed that the Japanese wouldn’t be satisfied with water on earth but that they’d seek Jesus, who gives water that gives eternal life… or when we saw bread and we prayed that they might seek Jesus who is the bread of life, or when we saw salt, that the churches would be salt and light in their schools, workplaces and everything :D

MOTHERS’ & KIDS’ ENGLISH CLASS

Before we finished our prayer walk, we realised that we were late for the English class we were helping out with. Susan and Saeko run this English class where kids from preschool to primary school age get to play and learn English and the mothers would be discussing what it means to be a good mother from a biblical perspective.

The kids were asking us what our names were, what food we liked, what animals we liked and stuff in English and it was really awesome to be able to play with them and communicate by laughing or playing because I really had no language – and as Cerise said, it is quite sad when you can’t even communicate with an 8 year old but really thankful that Christ’s love is for everyone and transcends all cultural and language barriers and it was so awesome to be able to serve them and get to know them :)

Afterwards some mothers and children would move down to the play area where we chatted with the mothers (Saeko and Tracy translated for me) about earthquakes and cooking and stuff and really praise God for the time that Saeko and Susan can spend with these wonderful mothers (some who are seeking) where they could build relationships and open up to each other. Praise God that a while ago, one of them even asked to see Saeko to meet up privately read the bible together as a result of this time together :D

JAPANESE BIBLE STUDY

Tonight we visited Steve and Susan’s Japanese bible study where they’ve been going through a series on prayer, and the passage tonight was on 1 Timothy 2. The Japanese speakers read through a book on that topic and Susan translated for us, before we all practised a game we’re going to play at the Hiraoka Christmas service :) Praise God for this small but committed group of Christians and please pray for them as they try to invite non-Christians to join their bible study, and that they’d have courage to invite people to join their bible study.

Please continue to pray for the English Christmas Party the Oomagari church is holding 11^th (this Saturday) – that many will come and that relationships will be built with contacts and that many will be interested in coming to church. Also please pray for the Australian Christmas Outreach event we’re having on the 18^th

·      wisdom for the Committee to plan the event

·      for preparations and energy for the team

·      for Nakamura sensei’s Christmas message God will bring people to the event and that He will open the hearts of those He has chosen to know him, and for the church to spend quality time following up and answering questions J

How great is our God

This morning in team devotions we looked at the book of Jonah. God teaches us all different things but this morning a few things struck me as we were reading through it and discussing it.

God is so powerful. He can do things that we think impossible to do. Sometimes we think of God only being able to do what we can, but God is not limited to human capabilities - he is awesome and powerful. He made the great fish swallow Jonah and spit him out, he caused the city of Nineveh to turn back to him and repent, he worked in Jonah's own heart to help him to remember God's compassion on him. God is a powerful and great God.

I've also been encouraged to be more prayerful. The missionaries who I have met seem to be very prayerful, always committing each task, each person, each ministry, each step of their journey to God and you need to be prayerful here. I was reminded that God wants us to bring even the little things in our lives to Him. It's all important to Him and He can work even in the things that we think seem insignificant.

The people here are a huge encouragement too. The Christians who attend local churches in the area serve faithfully and joyfully. They are a real blessing to the church here and more than that, they have a heart to see God's kingdom grow here. The missionaries here have been taking excellent care of us as well! Always thinking of us and praying for us. They have been great to talk to and we have all been encouraged by their heart for the people here and their faithful service.

The kids here are soooo cute! Kawaii! I want to take them all home with me! They are full of energy too! But pray for the kids here, that their hearts will also be open to hearing about the good news of Jesus too. Kids here are so attentive and they will just listen but you're not sure how much they are taking in. Pray that God helps us to find a way to connect with them and that we can share His love with them too.

1st wk of mission- FMZero team

Hmm...it's been a while since the fmZERO team last blogged. Shirley from the other team, Omagari team had blogged more regularly. Wow, some amazing stuff there Shirley...Sam, Clare and I (fmZERO team) will continue to pray for you guys!

It took a while to blog mainly due to internet issues. But God have given us much blessings since we arrived in Sapporo! Clare mentioned about the international church we went to last Sunday. Yes, it was really encouraging to see ppl from all different continents all in fellowship and glorifying his name! :)

We have met quite a lot of young ppl so far! All with different levels of English speaking abilities but many are keen to practice their English!

The Sapporo city centre have more uni students around. We met with many of the uni students most of whom are not Christians. Last night, the fmZERO team joined Sarah to the English Bible study held at Sapporo International Church. The Bible study was about accepting the gift of eternal life offered and following Christ (taking up the cross passage in Luke). We met an intelligent philosophy student who questioned a lot about the cost of following Christ! He mentioned how hard it is to follow Jesus in Japan ( Christianity - part of a minority) and he also questioned what heaven is like. I was really encouraged by how serious he is in searching for the answers before making any decisions and that he came to the Bible study despite his busy schedule. Please pray for God continue to prepare the hearts of many just like him to come to seek God.

We really praise God for his provision for the Australian night held on the 7th Dec! Before the event, there were many uncertainties esp with food. God provided us with helpers and we were able to cook all the food on time. The event ran relatively smoothly. God answered our prayers! Praise God for the many of the students who were able to come and that many of them brought their friends along. It was awesome to see some of them openly saying that they are Christians! Sarah's talk on God as our creator was really fitting.

Praise him too for the conversations we were able to have. I came across ppl who have been exposed to Christianity in their childhood. One girl said she stopped attending church mainly due to the pressure of studying at university. I've invited her to attend a church with us on Sunday. Even if she can't come, please pray for more opportunities for her to come to know Jesus better. Maybe through Christian friends she meets?

Prayer points - in addition to the above.
* praise him for aust night - the conversations and provisions.
* that God equip us to explain clearly on the gospel for those seeking to know him
* for many students to be able to come to Christmas event on 21st Dec. For open hearts eager to hear about Jesus. Please pray for God's guidance on the prep.

Thanks for reading guys!

TUESDAY: ABC CLUB

ABC CLUB soo awesome! It was a pretty packed hour full of games, an Australian animals quiz, songs, craft, cooking, snacks, presents – everything. About 40 kids came and some came with their parents. Please pray for follow up with these kids and their parents, that many will come to the Christmas event and for more Christians from the Hiraoka church to commit time and energy to serving in this ministry (who really needs more hands and hearts and prayers) and to youth and uni ministry :)

IT’S SO SAD TO HEAR THAT…

Something that really saddens me is that at Hiraoka church, which is considered quite a balanced church has quite a few old people, less than 10 young workers, 2 high school students, about 15 primary school students and no university students. L

University students have so much time on our hands and quite a lot of income to give as we don’t always have families to support, and we have a big giving and encouraging capacity. At Gracepoint there’s about 70 people in our university bible study group… and I can’t imagine not knowing God through the stressful times where getting good marks and not failing really struggled to dominate my waking and sleeping hours, and where sometimes I felt so different and so alone… how much more would the university students here feel that, when a lot of them have to move away from home to go to university?

There’s an agricultural university here near Oomagari where there is no evangelical connection at all – no KGK (AFES equivalent)… no nothing. There aren’t many youth groups or events around.. or even at all, and in fact many people just hang around at Starbucks.

I’ve been thinking and praying about what God might want me to do in the long term and in the future, and after hearing about there being not enough people from the church to help out with reaching out to the youth and university students it really saddened me and it really fuelled my desire to pray for God to raise up workers from within Japan. Extreme (our youth group back in Sydney) has challenged me and nurtured my faith and encouraged me to grow in my relationship with God, and it was during then that I became a Christian. Without the teaching and bible studies at FCG (our uni bible study group) and at Credo (the AFES Christian group at UTS) I probably wouldn’t be challenged to even come to mission as a short termer.

Susan, another long term missionary from Sydney (you guys may know her – she comes from Grace church at Hurstville :D) also has a burden for the youth here and was thinking of starting a homework group or something but people at Hiraoka church just don’t have enough time to help out for outreach – so please pray that God will be able to change hearts and raise up leaders to reach out to neglected groups here like youth and the elderly.

We learnt from the regional director for OMF Hokkaido that OMF’s strategy isn’t to send missionaries to start new churches but to support Japanese churches when they decide to plant churches, to send missionaries to support them.  

I don’t really know what it looks like to be called to long term mission overseas... but it’s been good to just see how the long term missionaries live here. Having asked them how they knew that God called them to long term mission overseas, some responses so far have been that:

·      Examining one’s own desire – whether you want to go (subjective test I guess :P) and then asking Christians you trust about whether they think you’re suited to it (the objective test)

·      God has spoken to their hearts while on short term mission that it’s what He wants them to do, and doors closed and opened but eventually applying for Japan was quite smooth

·      God revealed over time that overseas was something God wanted them to do – first while on short term but then they realised that God wanted their whole lives and not just their holidays

One of the missionaries reminded me that not everyone is called to long term mission and that if I wasn’t sure, to work in a secular for a few years first because ultimately we’re all in a secular world and those experiences will help me empathise with the people I might meet while on mission in the future (if God does bring me to) – which I thought was reasonable.

I was really challenged me to pray for different countries and to try doing something cross cultural back at home in Sydney; reaching people that I’m not similar to culturally because it’s not natural to reach someone who is different to you. Tracy encouraged me to not do something safe or something I’m used to. It’s easy to give yourself to God when you have nothing (no qualifications or money or whatever) but it becomes harder when you have stuff you don’t want to let get of, like a job or after you earn a degree but God will hold you to your promise and He will ask you to give it up because He wants us to serve Him with everything that we have because He wants to be our supreme treasure above all.

Some things that God has been challenging me with is if this is what He wants me to do, will I be able to entrust the rest of my life to Him? What would it be like trusting totally in Him in terms of being financially dependant on the generosity of others’ giving to the work of the gospel? Would I be humble enough to do so? Would I be willing to leave everything I have to go to somewhere new where I couldn’t build on anything I had before? What would my parents say? What about desires to get married and have children? (A reliable source told me that for 380 single missionaries there were less than 100 single men, hmm.)

…to be honest though, those are issues that I’ve thought quite a while before I to come with :) Praise God for the peace He’s given me because in my heart He’s reassured me that no matter where He takes me and when that will be, that He’s got my whole life planned out and in control, and that I can only find satisfaction in Him :)

POINTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Tatsuki-san

Something of great encouragement was that Tatsuki-san who we blogged about earlier apparently became a Christian through God’s work in the English Speaking Society at Hokkaido University. As the missionaries in Hokkaido all speak English, they’re quite welcome at the English Speaking Society :) Tatsuki-san said that he didn’t get baptised for a long time because his parents weren’t okay with him getting baptised but he got baptised eventually. How much encouragement is that!

Being the Youngest in the Team

There has been days where I’ve wondered how God can use someone like me - so young and inexperienced in life, quite naïve and sheltered in her Sydney bubble – in His mission field. It felt like because all my experiences in life had come only from studying, I couldn’t really relate to the parents or grandparents of family here or anything and I didn’t feel like I had much to share, and I’d felt like I couldn’t articulately recount what God had been doing in my life to encourage anyone.

However I was really in awe to hear from Grace that Mrs Maruyama’s 21 year old workmate at Starbucks (who works 2 jobs a day) questioned who we were and when Mrs Maruyama explained that we were missionaries from Australia ranging from 20-46 years old, she was really surprised that someone as young as 20 could believe in Jesus Christ, and that she wanted to meet us!

For me, it was so humbling that all this time I had been thinking all about MY inadequacies, MY struggles and MY problems that I had robbed God of His glory completely and I had taken His spotlight away. HE was the one that deserved all the credit for HIS work in my life, and it is so amazing that He chooses to show His might through our weaknesses. I think this realisation caused me to view everything in a different way as to why we are here, and what we’re doing. We’re not here to show that we’re good Christians, because it isn’t that we won a race to get here: it’s to show that even though we are broken and so flawed, Jesus unites us because He is our ultimate treasure that we want to share with the world. Please pray that He may use this opportunity to speak through me to encourage others :)

PS: I SAW ERENE IN A BATHROOM IN AN OUTLET HERE SO RANDOMLY!!! she is a missionary from our church who went to taiwan :)

MONDAY: DAY OFF

Monday was our day off :) it’s quite amusing because it feels like mission has barely started and we have a day off!:)

We are really grateful for Mr and Mrs Maruyama, Saeko-san and Tatsuki-san (one of the young men from Hiraoka church who speaks English because he completed pilot training in Adelaide) who took us sightseeing at the chocolate factory, the Korean barbecue and to this place called… a hill with something to do with sheep :D They were so enthusiastic even when we were so touristy and took funny photos with absolutely everything!

WILLIAM CLARKE

At the Sheep Hill, there was William Clarke’s statue with his famous quote: ‘Boys be ambitious!’. You can still see many of these statues and reminders all over Hokkaido University/Kita Hiroshima, especially on some random souvenirs.

William Clarke was a Christian who came to Japan’s agricultural college in Hokkaido as a teacher/headmaster when it first began. He said that he did not come as a missionary but wanted to run the school with Christian principles.

The story goes that when the first year ended, the first students came out with really bad marks. The director was really mad at them but Clarke asked him if he could be given one term or one year to do bible studies with them. As a result, many students came to faith and some of the students who graduated with Clarke as their teacher went on to be some of the most famous evangelists in Japan.

As Clarke was leaving on horseback, some students came along to farewell him, as is the custom in Japan to see people to their point of departure. Clarke’s parting words were, ‘Boys be ambitious for Jesus Christ!’

Unfortunately, the most important words have been severed and forgotten. Many Japanese use it as motivation at universities and even for company morale boosting (Japan Rail (JR), who are renowned for their trains that run precisely on time, apparently used it as their slogan).

Maybe we can ask someone about whether they know the origin of this phrase :) what do you think, FMZero team? :D 

Hiraoka Church Service

Just to let you guys know, I'll try to italicise my thoughts so you don't have to read them if you just want to know what happened :)

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for us and for commenting. The team is SO encouraged by these comments and we really thank you for supporting us in prayer! Let's continue to partner in the gospel and continue to run the race, maturing in Christ every day. :)


The Service
Sunday was the first time many of us (including me!) had ever been to a Japanese church service :)

We went to Hiraoka Gospel Christ Church, which is the mother church that planted the Oomagari church we were sent to. Hiraoka is the suburb next to Oomagari and is in the city of Kita Hiroshima (which means North of Hiroshima).

The Manders drove Tracy and I to the church at about 9.20AM because Emilie had Sunday School from 9.45 to 10.30. I had a lot of fun singing High School Musical in the car with little Emilie. We walked into the church and everyone and I mean EVERYONE there greeted us so warmly as we put our shoes and coats away and put slippers on. They introduced themselves to us, many speaking English and it was hard to remember everyone's name but they seemed so happy to see us! An older gentleman was even joking with us to make us feel more comfortable and less nervous. The love they showed us was very touching :)

We watched from the back as the kids sang Christmas carols together with the Sunday School teacher. There were about 15-20 kids from the age of 1 to high school aged. It was really cute to see one of the kids who was probably about 8 or 9 years old holding the baby like a responsible older brother because the baby's real older brother was about 3 :)

There was even a time where the teacher called out the names of the kids whose birthdays were in December, and we all sang them Happy Birthday after they received little Hello Kitty envelopes with stickers! :D Some of the team told me to go up as well -_- thanks guys, I know I'm young but the kids would find it so strange!! =P

Later on, the kids split up into the toddlers' group, the primary school group and the high school group (which usually has 2 people in it but only had 1 yesterday) and they learnt about the story of Christmas from the bible. Please pray that God will be using this generation of children mightily to glorify Himself, to encourage the Christian adults and to be trained to pass on the gospel, reaching out to the world around them and encouraging others to desire Him while desiring Him more everyday.

Even though the service started at 10.45am and everyone arrived early as Machiko san (the mother of the 3 children whose house we were at on the first night) was nervously practising singing for the worship session during the service. Even though she had a lovely voice, she was so humble and hospitable towards others! :D. There were people of all ages, and I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to see quite a few young people there, as well as old people in their 80s and 90s!

One old man was the father of the chairman of the Omagari Church Planting Committee and he had gotten baptised when he was 88! It was such an encouragement to know that God works in His own time, that we don't know what will happen. Praise God for His perfect timing and please pray that God will be encouraging many others through him :)

During the service, the kids would quietly draw pictures of the missionaries before giving it to them as gifts. :) they behaved SO well! One of the little girls who was 4 years old was too shy to look at us and would bury her head in her mother's lap whenever she caught our eyes!!

Singing during the service wasn't as difficult as I expected personally because although there were kanji and some katakana in the lyrics on the slides which I can't read, I could read hiragana and there were little hiragana characters on top of the kanji :) the songs were quite repetitive and even though I had no idea what I was singing when we were singing with the hiragana, because I could read the meaning of the kanji characters, they shed some light as to what the lyrics meant (which had a lot of words like Lord, grace, sin, death, etc etc). NB: the Japanese language has 3 alphabets: hiragana and katakana (which are phonetic) and kanji (which are taken from Chinese characters but they have different pronunciation in Japanese).

Carson then did his testimony which we recorded, with Saeko translating. As there aren't many men in Japanese churches (Saeko explained that it was hard for salarymen especially to become Christians because every morning at the meetings there's a practice where the whole company bows to these idols/gods to ask for prosperity for the company and for Christians to refuse, it makes them stand out and some bosses get offended), the church asked Carson to give his testimony to encourage the men there. Some of the other members of the team will give their testimonies at different times during the 2-3 weeks here. :) I'm a bit.. scared to because I don't feel that mine is very clear and I'm not good at articulating things at all :( Please pray for the other team members who are giving their testimonies at various times, that God will be speaking through them to the hearts of many who know Him and especially those who don't, and that they will be speaking clearly.
The sermon was preached by Nakamura sensei, the young pastor there who also preaches at Oomagari. Pete, our youth pastor back at home, went on short term mission to Japan 11 years ago to Hokkaido University and did bible study with non Christians there, one of them being Nakamura sensei who was not Christian at the time. I spoke with Nakamura sensei on the night we arrived and he said he became Christian about a year afterwards :) Praise God :D  It's pretty amazing what God does and really praise God that even if we don't see the fruit while we just water or plant or whatever, that it's only God that gives the growth.

The sermon was on the passage in Mark 15:21-28 when the Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter but he hesistates but seeing her faith he heals her in the end. Tracy and the other missionaries helped us by translating the sermon. I'll post more about this sermon soon.

As a church family we had communion together, where their bread (as Japanese bread is about twice as thick) was in cubes and they had small glass cups for their wine/grape juice and although most of the team didn't understand the prayers and stuff as it was in Japanese, it was a really good insight as to what church was like on the other side of the world! Although their church numbers were smaller than many of the churches in Australia, and the room was quite cosy, I find that the Japanese Christians we have met are very hospitable, loving, committed and dedicated. Please pray that although they are small in numbers and they lack men who can lead (mostly lacking men full stop), that they will remain faithful and passionate in their faith. Praise God for His work at Hiraoka where they are generous and passionate in their reach out to the non-believers in their community.

The service as a whole was quite structured and well-timed, and as there was a church meeting that went for 2 hours or so, the team got driven to the JUSCO shopping centre afterwards where we had lunch and shopped for a bit.

Lunch and shopping afterwards

I apologise in advance if the following section about food sounds more exciting than the church service because it wasn't and I don't want to take the focus away from the service because the food is a way smaller part.

Having allocated 800 yen each for lunch, Karen had takoyaki (octopus balls) while the rest of us were SUPER excited about having KFC. That's right, KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN ... THAT'S KFC :D KFC in Japan is quite different. We had 10 pieces of chicken (half original recipe and half red hot), corn soup, coke and melon soda (which I discovered was pretty much just like the bright green cordial we have back home), a baked pie with cream soup in it, and some coleslaw.

Afterwards, we went to buy some supplies like popped rice. Coco Pops, glitter and crayons for the ABC Club the church is holding tomorrow - the '1 hour special' :D

It was here when I started to feel really ill, really suddenly, wanting to faint and just really nauseous. I felt really helpless and without energy. Really praise God for the girls in the team who looked after me as I slept on the couch in the middle of the shopping centre, feeling little kids put stuff in my hair as they giggled but feeling too tired to do anything about it. Also many thanks to God for providing me with brothers and sisters who looked after me by giving me water and Panadol, after which I felt a lot better - thank God for healing me! :) Mrs Maruyama said today that Mr Maruyama was quite worried about me because they all saw me take medicine yesterday :( I felt quite bad but really praise God for these brothers and sisters who didn't know me well at all show so much love to me because we're all brothers and sisters in Christ :)

Meeting with Matsumi-san

After we came home from the Hakuyen (sp?) store (which is my favourite store - the 100 yen store where EVERYTHING in there is 100yen each :D (about $1 something)) where we bought stuff for ABC club, we napped because for some reason we've been feeling really tired even when we don't do much during the day. Saeko-san says that it's probably because we're not used to being in a new culture and so we have to pay extra attention etc etc. Please continue to pray for our health as some of us are still recovering and not all of us are sleeping well. As it snows quite heavily now and it quite cold, please pray that we don't get sick and that we'll be energised to serve Him :) - and also so we don't have to wear the masks here that sick people wear in Japan :P

When we woke up, we discovered that Matsumi-san had come over to visit the Manders for dinner! Matsumi-san shared her testimony with us on the day we arrived and you can read it in an earlier post. She shared with us of her plans to move away from home in Hokkaido to Osaka next year to work there so she can share the gospel with this group/school of Japanese traditional cultural arts where there are virtually no christians. This traditional art form is like a really appreciated form of Japanese comedy/story telling where a complex level of Japanese is used, and it is quite influential and respected. Apparently the leader of the school had been Christian before and when he died, 700 people came to his funeral and heard the gospel for the first time! Since his death, there is only one other Christian there.

Hearing about how she has been praying for 3-4 years for this now has been really encouraging, but she also expressed uncertainty whether please pray that she'll be able to trust and rely on God's plans for her when she goes next year, that she will meet many brothers and sisters in Christ who will encourage her and that she will trust in God's provision for her financially, spiritually and emotionally.

She was sharing this with Tracy, Saeko and I and the question of 'how do you know that God is guiding you in this way to go to a particular place?' came up, something which I found quite interesting to learn about. Tracy was talking about with things like evangelism and stuff where the bible says it's something you should go for, you should go for it. God will open doors and if He doesn't want you to do something, He'll close doors. For me, closing doors has been a pretty hard thing to deal with yet it was really eye-opening to have my perspective changed when Tracy said.. (paraphrased) 'Just because you're trying to get somewhere and God closes the door, you shouldn't be afraid or dismayed because perhaps if He closes the door right before you get to it, maybe it's because He's trying to get you to see something else that you couldn't see unless you travelled there.

A ------------------------------> ||  B

but something that you might not have been able to see ... C

Which is something I hadn't really thought about before. I'd always thought that if God said 'no' to some thing, it might have been that it wasn't the right time or something, but I hadn't thought of looking around to what God wanted me to do outside of me, me, me. Who are the people who I can love? Who are the people I can be sharing Christ with?

Matsumi-san also expressed that as the men have a special social meeting time at a weekly/fortnightly connect event that Steve started called RA-MEN (haha I think it's awesome) to encourage each other and meet men in the area, that the girls should have a time to share and encourage each other too at Starbucks or something (which is quite popular in Japan :D). It's really encouraged me to arrange more meetings and opening up my time to meeting with more brothers and sisters back at home, especially outside of a Sunday!  Please be praying for both ministries and that the Japanese won't give up on meeting with and encouraging each other in Christ, even when there may be 2, 3 or 6 people in a church here. :)  

Beginning of Mission!!! WOOHOO!!!

It has already been a week in Japan and although we've all arrived a bit earlier than when mission officially began, the days went by really quickly and before we knew it, orientation of mission hit us like a bomb! Since people from Omagari team has already blogged about the orientation, we shall proceed to talk about the exciting stuff that's been happening at FMZero! So, here goes!

Last Wednesday night, we went to an English group that is held at the Sapporo International Church! There, we met some students who were very keen to learn English! We started off the night by playing a game, organised by Sarah Piper, together. It was very interesting because we were split into three different groups and each group had to find out as much about Sam, Ada and myself in 6 minutes! Then each group was questioned in turn and for every answer that they could give, the team earned a point! It was very funny, because some people asked some really obscure questions, like: who does Clare want to marry? (Like...what the....)

Then, we split off into different groups and studied the Bible together. I was very encouraged by the girls in the group that I was in, especially by a girl called Mutsumi who is not a Christian but has been going to church for a few weeks. She asked whether we have experienced God's miracles in our lives...and from her perspective, God's miracle is God's guidance to us, which was a great reminder to me that as God guides and leads us in our lives, that's a miracle in itself! And she shared about her own experiences as well and how she has been praying to God sometimes... I was just so amazed that this was coming from a non-Christian! And never have I imagined that the first night going to this English class would bring such encouragement to me! God is truly amazing!

Besides the English class at Sapporo International Church, we also went to a Christmas concert on Friday night. It was very interesting because it incorporated very youthful style of music with a live band playing, as well as a choir performing in the latter session. Also, there was a person praising God and taught everyone how to sing to God through sign language! Just so awesome to be able to praise God in that way with your brothers and sisters in Christ =) Even though the sermon was in Japanese, it gave us an opportunity to talk to the students who went and asked them what it was all about!

Also, we went to the service at the Sapporo International Church on Sunday! We were just so encouraged by how people from different nations can come together and praise God together! And it was really awesome to hear what God has been doing in all these other countries and it was just amazing to see the heart that God has given to these people for Christ!!!!

Tonight, we'll be going with Sarah to an English club at Hokudai! Can't wait to see what God has planned for us and who He'll bring along our paths!

And it would be awesome if all you who are reading our blog to keep praying for us:

* Praise God for the people we've met, that He'll continue to just work in their lives and bring them to Him

* Pray for tomorrow night, as we are holding an Australian evangelistic! Pray that things will go smoothly and many will come! Pray also that God will speak through Sarah and her talk to the students!

* Pray that Sam, Ada and myself will continue to seek to love, serve and care for one another as God has put us in this mission together! Pray that we'll work well together!

* Pray that we'll keep relying on God no matter what happens! That we will keep trusting in Him and all His plans and His ways! Remembering also faithfulness first, success second!

Hmm...that's all for now I think....

Oh and it's Ada's birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ADA!!! Hehe Praise God that Sam and my subtle ways worked and she was surprised!!!! =)

First day of Omagari!

It was my brother’s birthday yesterday, so we ended up skyping around 11pm-12am the night before! :D happy birthday Ron!

3rd December: A Warm Welcome!

This was typed yesterday, after we came to Omagari...

Today we had the rest of orientation:

• a Japanese language class, lessons on Japanese do’s and don’t’s (and we realised that we already did a lot of the things we weren’t supposed to such as pressing ANY red buttons, blowing your nose, sitting cross -legged if you're a girl, or not wearing socks indoors)
• prayer for both teams before we went to Ramen
• some orientation as to what we would be doing for the next few weeks at Omagari and what homestays were going to be like (yay!)

before we got on the subway and bus to go to Omagari :)

Learning to bow as we greeted!

part of the theme of the OMF Hokkaido language centre

Map of Japan on the OMF Centre wall

Karin, one of the missionaries who serve at FMZero

It took a while to get there, especially with all the rain today that melted the slippery ice away but we were greeted with a warm welcoming party by the families on the Omagari Church Plant Team, including 6 kids and a rabbit. Praise God for their amazing hospitality and love to us by cooking dinner and amazing dessert and by very encouraging conversation.

Matsumi (the girl on the bottom right) asked Tracy to share her testimony, and then reciprocated by sharing her own. She attended a protestant kindergarten, but never understood why her mum thought that "making God No.1" was the most important thing in life. She attended a church where she was the only student in Sunday School and had no christian friends at school either. Her mum suggested that she go to a Christian camp bringing kids from churches all around Japan. She made lots of friends and learnt that making God no. 1 was IN RESPONSE TO HIS LOVE, and it was no longer difficult to understand why her mum was so devoted to God. She gave her life to Christ and is now a teacher at a protestant kindergarten. Unfortunately there are very few christian primary and high schools so much of what kids learn in kindergarten do not stick in their heads through their childhood :(

And now, what happened today! :)

4th December: First day in Omagari :)

Today I woke up at 9am Japan time, which is 11am Sydney time! For the past few days since arriving I've been waking up at 7am Japan time as I hadn't quite adjusted to the time difference. Tracy and I are staying at the Manders' house, and their hospitality has been so touching for us and we thank God for them so much :) They have a 7 year old daughter Emilie who really loves pink and we play shopping with her. Her cash register could say "welcome", "here is your change", "please come again", had a barcode scanner, calculator, and credit card swiper!!! Japanese toys are so high tech! Shopping at Emilie's supermarket was very enjoyable however, as she often gave you 5 times more "change" back than you paid her in the first place :) Good way to build customer loyalty I reckon :)

Everyone else came over for a team devotion and a meeting on the schedule for the rest of mission. Steve led us on devotions today and it was on 2 Timothy 2:1-13, and the main message from that was 'Remember Jesus Christ'.

Steve had preached on this passage to encourage another church and it was really encouraging as he reminded us that when we're on short term, even if we don't see anything, we shouldn't feel that there's 'nothing' because God uses everything! This reminded me of what Tracy told me last night before we slept. She was telling me about a particular friend and how God has been working and preparing him for His purposes since he was little. His ethnicity, upbringing and education were all pieces of a puzzle God intricately designed for his purposes. I think hearing about a lot of missionary's stories about how they came to serve in Japan or wherever they are has been really eye opening. I hear about how God moves them bit by bit and how He prepares them without them even knowing!

Steve also said that our role as missionaries is to enable God's word to go out and do its work because IT is powerful, not us :)

Praise God that Omagari, where there are a lot of young families with kids while the husbands work in Sapporo which is about 45 minutes away by car, has been really responsive to the church events with a lot of seekers (including someone who had been meeting up with a Jehovah's Witness for 10 years, but had never felt it was quite right, and then met Saeko, one of the missionaries, and is now getting baptised in March! The first fruit of Omagari Church! PRAISE GOD :D :D)

Steve and Saeko (the long term missionary couple) and Susan showed us the advertisement for the main Australian Summer Christmas outreach event to be held on the 18th of December, where we'll be serving some Australian snacks, showing a slideshow of what life is like in Australia, facepainting, etc etc :) IT HAS OUR FACES ON IT!! :O The ads are actually going out in the 3000 subscription Omagari newspaper in a couple of days :D please pray for many to come!

Come to experience Christmas in Summer! :)
Chinese Australian missionaries.. hahaha

We also had the encouragement of being there where the first RSVP of the ad came by fax. This was the 5th & 6th people to RSVP to come, as 4 people had signed up to come beforehand!! We really thank God for bringing them!



ABC CLUB PREP


Later on we went to Susan's (another long term missionary here from Sydney) to prepare for the ABC club, a new ministry and a kids club for lower primary students after school with a bit of an English segment. We prepared the angel craft (cutting 70 paper plates) together, Saeko went out to buy stuff and we prepared for the "1 hour special" program for ABC club in the coming week where we would introduce ourselves.

Please pray that many kids will come, even though it gets dark really early in winter here so primary school kids in Japan actually have a curfew of having to be home by 4pm. As the club runs from 3.30pm to 4.30pm, some kids aren't allowed to come bt please pray that parents may be moved to come with their kids and there will be gospel conversation made with them! It's so exciting because all but the parents of 2-3 kids (of from anywhere from 10=64 kids) who come are non christians and new contacts!! Please pray that God will be working through the kids and their parents!


To be honest, it was a challenge.

In the 1 hour special that Cerise organised, it was all a bit of a blur as we had to improvise and change a bit when things didn't fit. It was decided that another lady would teach them a Japanese song, we'd play some games (like Bzz, Bullrush and some back up ones like Poisonball, Ninja Destruction, a screaming game (i can't wait for that one!!)), perform a skit and the pastor would do a Christmas message. Then we'd have chocolate crackles and fairy bread :)

HOWEVER.. things didn't work out so smoothly.

The gift skit we had practised seemed too abstract for kids to understand, so we decided to do the other one Cerise had suggested called "You Are Special", but it was too long, so we had to cut it down. After spending a lot of time editing it and changing it into more Japanese names (um we called the people the 'Takoyaki people' :) ) we tried practising it and translating it into Japanese and it turned out to be too hard for us to perform (as only Tracy understands Japanese)....

and in the end we had to scrap it, which was quite sad and personally I found it a bit frustrating :( Fortunately by God's grace, He's blessed us with a team that is very flexible, patient and trusting in God's provision and everyone was willing to change. Susan provided us with a quiz she had made about Australia and used a while before, and before long we were practising how to hop along, pretending to be Australian animals for the kids to guess!

Cerise will be a koala, Grace a kangaroo, Karen a crocodile, Carson an emu, and I will be a frilled neck lizard while Tracy will be the translator/host :)

I really learnt the need to be flexible and the need to be understanding even when things change at the last minute. Steve told us that as a missionary you really have to be prepared to be flexible, even if things change halfway through the actual event! Please pray that we can be humble and willing to serve each other, learning to be flexible and that God will give us the patience and keep reminding us of Christ's love to do so.

Edit: oh yeah, and we experienced our second earthquake today at Susan's house. :)

After all the preparation, we had some team debrief time over the past couple of days to share what God has been teaching us, what we found surprising in Japan, the culture shocks we had and things like that.

I actually found it quite confronting and I was quite tired after a whole day I found it hard to be thinking back over the past few days so I've learnt that I need to reflect everyday over what God has been teaching me or I'd be overloaded by info and forget! :( Please pray that we'll be dependant on Him and His word everyday, setting time aside to be with Him and talk to Him everyday even when things get busy in the schedule.

However we prayed in pairs for each other, and also for ABC club which is really exciting!!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we'll be off to the Hiraoka worship service (the mother church that planted the Omagari church we're at) and Steve told us that there's quite a lot of believers there. One of the families who are on the Omagari church planting team actually moved their whole family over to the Omagari area for the purpose of church planting. I am so encouraged by their dedication! We're really excited and this will be my first time at a Japanese church where we will understand nothing (I don't think there'll be translation for the sermon) but I can't wait!! :)



OMF Day of Prayer

Today was an awesome day :)  sorry, no photos though until tomorrow :( I'll give you guys some general photos I find off the web then =P

one of the prayer groups :)

Every half a year, OMF Hokkaido region has a Day of Prayer where all the missionaries in the Hokkaido region come together to the Hokkaido Language Centre, where people learn Japanese intensely for 2 years before they become long term missionaries in Japan.

They come together because the bible says that prayer is powerful because God is a father who listens to the concerns of His children and He loves it when they bring their worship, concerns, worries and hopes before Him.

These 30 (?) missionaries come and pray together for the mission fields, the homesides, the diaspora ministries (for (asian) people who are staying in another country - eg. the East Asians in Korea who are staying for work or education etc) and the Singapore International Head Quarters Office for OMF, and also for ourselves personally, for the whole day.

It was such a blessing to be invited to today! It was incredibly structured and today's meeting was led by Steve and Saeko, the two of the three missionaries we are staying with while in Omagari.

God started the day with a bang - I got woken up by a violent earthquake (lasting 1-2 seconds), some smaller earthquakes and another violent but short earthquake that shook the whole room. Nobody came to get us after a while so I went back to sleep - though some of our teammates slept through them!

In the morning, we went to the Sapporo Food Centre to buy bento boxes for lunch which we could later heat up. As our budget for lunch was 500 yen per person (about $7 something), Grace handed us each a 500 yen coin and like kindergarten children we ran loose into the aisles of scrumptious looking lunches which were mostly 298-398 yen, and most of us chose a drink to go with it or an onigiri (rice ball) or in Cerise's case, a cream puff.

It is here where I've come to witness the cutest sight in Japanese yet - a mother shopping with 4 children trailing after her - and all 5 of them are carrying empty shopping baskets :D :D

As we arrived at the centre, we hear Karin inside the room starting the meeting at 10AM on the dot, and was introducing the Australian team.. but we were still outside! So as Australians we gave a pretty bad first impression =P

The day was divided up into 7 sessions of prayer, 45 minutes each where we prayed with different missionaries for places all around the world. We opened and closed with older hymns sung together and it was really encouraging to be reminded that God does answer prayers and some of the missionaries shared testimonies of how God has answered prayers for Japanese pastors for their church, and workers that God has sent from overseas.

The prayer meeting really opened my eyes up to the needs of missionaries all over the world, and His workers' humble requests and worship of their God - creator, lord, father and king. How great is the gift of prayer, which we so often choose to neglect or we reluctantly take as a burden, and obligation instead of a joyful gift God blesses us with!

After that, we went as a team to the onsen which was a very culturally interesting experience and very relaxing too, and we went to a sushi train place where every plate was 129 yen each, which is less than $2 :)

Cerise and her yummy dinner.. :P

We head to Omagari tomorrow (where we're going for mission!) after the 2nd half of our orientation :) please be praying for us and that God will be changing the hearts and eyes of the people there to see His glory.

Praise God that from what we have heard, the Omagari people there are quite responsive and please pray that while we live in non Christian homes that we may be witnesses that shine the light of Christ :)

Orientation Day One - lessons learnt by a child of God

Sorry for not blogging for the past couple of days! They have been exhausting - walking in snow is a bit like walking in sand: it takes a bit more strength to trudge though, except it's SO slippery! Many of us have stacked it already, and as expected I stacked it within the first 15 minutes out in the snow!

Yesterday, as mission hadn't started yet, most of the team (Tracy was flying from Sydney - we hadn't left her behind!) we went to a really nice (touristy) spot called Otaru which is about an hour's train trip from Sapporo station and it was really pretty as it was covered in snow.

It was a lot of fun and we had a great time together as a team, with our wonderful Grace and Carson as awesome tour guides  :) some awesome things included getting cream puffs for 70 yen (which is less than $1) and you got FREE COFFEE that you got to enjoy at a lovely cafe :) Some of us then went to this place called Fantasy World (Tracy asked whether this place was in Cerise's head when we told her) and it was like an Ice Wonderland - think of an ice palace/igloo! There were frozen fish and flowers inside the blocks of ice (even sushi and sashimi) and we went down this 18m long ice slide three times :) I was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday but praise God he helped me recover and enjoy the fellowship that we had!

ORIENTATION

Today was the first day of orientation that we had at the Hokkaido Language Centre, where long term OMF missionaries study Japanese intensively for 2 years. I think if I could summarise today, it would be that I learnt a lot and I was really humbled and reminded of who God was, and He's been teaching me to stand in wonder as a child in His arms.

I've been thinking and praying about whether I should go to Lidcombe next year to the church plant and a sister suggested that I be praying about it while I'm on mission to ask God for wisdom in deciding where to serve. While I didn't include it in the 'expectations' list I compiled today during orientation, it's been sitting in my heart for a while and I've been.. pleasantly surprised and grateful for the ways God sometimes answers questions before we even articular them with our mouths, for He knows the desires of our hearts before WE know them!

Karin, one of the missionaries here from Germany who has been here for a long time, shared her testimony with us after a time of worship where we sang songs from the 70s and 80s together and she shared some information on religion in Japan, and it was a testimony that really left me thinking. She explained how she grew up knowing what it meant to 'be a servant', and slowly God showed her not only that it wasn't about pleasing other people but it was a deep and intimate relationship with Him that God calls us to - God says to 'be MY servant',  but she explained that God has brought her to understand throughout the years that God doesn't depend on human hands, instead He says: 'be MY child'. Jesus says to come to Him with child-like innocence: Matthew 18:3
And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
and it feels like that's what God wants to teach me today.

I'm going to be jumping between different events that happened today because I'm just amazed at how God has made them fit together!

SAPPORO INTERNATIONAL CHURCH

I just came back from an English Conversational Class at Sapporo International Church actually with some university students, mostly from Hokkaido University and another women's university nearby. We had dinner, chatted to each other and played a game where they got to know Ada, Clare and Sam, who are going to be serving with Sarah and Karin at FMZero, who teach the bible and build relationships with university students.

It was such an encouragement to see uni students there who were open to learn about the bible, open to asking questions, keen to wrestle with God's word together (and it was harder for them too because of the language,  but they persevered!). One girl described God's guidance and presence (which I feel we often take for granted) as a miracle and shared that recently she had started to think about God and pray to Him before she slept! Hallelujah! Seeing her share so joyfully reminded me of the wonders and supreme comforts of meeting God as a new Christian: finding him awesome, powerful, supreme above all.. it's really something I need to bring myself back to!

We also had a bible study in English there, titled Freedom to Change, which was on John where Jesus says to Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom of God, you have to be born again in the Spirit - putting our trust in Christ and God promises to give us the Spirit as a helper always! Something I learnt was from John 3:8:


⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

We don't know when God's Spirit is working in people: it's not something we can see in action, but we can see the fruits/effects of it in someone's life when God changes them from the inside. What it showed me was twofold, and they were actually points that were talked about during orientation today: 

1) that God is the one that changes people from the inside. As Christians, Jesus tells us to be His witnesses in Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the Earth (Acts 1) and I think that means loving God and loving others in word and deed, holding out the gospel and sharing our faith with them - but we don't know what God will do with that. Some of us plant, some of us water, some of us.. I don't know, might kick a dandelion to help spread its seeds or something,  but nobody knows what will happen but God. :) Some of us will see fruit in those that we pray for but that's not always the case, but God wants us to trust in Him and trust in His plans for He knows best :) 


2) I think God is pointing me to reflect upon my own relationship with Him and on my own life. So often I want to see the fruits of the spirit (Gal 5:22 - 23: ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control.) I want to love people more, find more joy, be more kind, good, faithful, gentle and self controlled... but I ignore why I'm supposed to want those things (that is, to be more Christ-like) and I forget that I can't do anything on my own, because GOD is the one that changes us!

MISSION STRATEGY??

During orientation today, the regional director (RD) for Hokkaido shared with us some things on OMF's mission strategy in Hokkaido, where they are trying to start churches that are led by OMF missionaries at first, by then handing it over to Japanese pastors  while continuing to support them through tight-knit relationships while they try to reach out to more of the Japanese, especially to youth and the elderly and really isolated towns where there isn't much evangelical (bible believing Christians) presence.

The RD talked about church planting and the thing that struck me most was when he said that church planting means sacrifices, and in fact making sacrifices to see the progression of the kingdom of God is something that all believers should be doing. However, God is the one in control, and the one who is all powerful and the one who provides and He tells us to trust in His plans. the RD talked about how God had been working in so many different ways and in the end it was God who made possible a seemingly impossible situation where they had no church building to meet in... and now it is a church with brothers and sisters with a desire to see people coming to know Christ!

It made me think about what I had been praying and thinking about and after talking to a team-mate about it, I was reminded once again that the kingdom of God is not dependent on human hands: whether or not I go, God will still be glorified and He has known exactly what will happen every day of our lives before we were even made! (Psalm 139)

Something the team-mate shared with me that her old pastor said was that God is a God of order, and confusion is not in His character and He doesn't want to confuse us. Quite often when we're presented with 2 choices, it is often us that confuses ourselves. If God wants something to happen, He'll make it happen and if He doesn't want something to happen, it won't. Reflecting on this, another missionary had shared with us how she came to Japan and she said, "I'll just keep knocking on doors until God says no!" (or something close) and I think it's just amazing how God works!


THANKS FOR READING UNTIL HERE :) I KNOW IT'S BEEN A LOOONG POST!

Today, I am so thankful. It is so encouraging to see people turning to Christ in a country where the thinking and culture is so different from the West: what is important is not the truth - it is harmony amongst each other. I think it might be an Eastern culture thing. My mum stresses harmony too, and I remember her saying that "harmony is what is of value ( 凡事都要以和為貴)" and this is a bit colloquial .. but when we keep arguing with, "but that's the truth!" she'd get a bit annoyed and she'd say, 'why are you talking about truth/truths so much? gees!'

I learnt today that Japanese thinking is really different in terms of how we think about where God is, where we are, and where creation is. Christians believe that God is the creator, that he created both humans and nature but He gave humans the role to look after His creation.. but the Japanese would believe that nature is above humans and in fact there are many gods (something like many million). I really do feel the struggle many face when they become Christians in terms of not worshiping ancestors anymore in front of family and struggling with their relatives and friends finding it extremely shameful.. :(

PRAISE GOD

• for the lessons He's been teaching me through people 
• for the OMF day of prayer tomorrow (10am-4pm) where all the missionaries in Hokkaido (i think!) come together to pray for the whole day
• for the Sapporo International Church where people are eager to learn from His word, and we thank Him for providing dedicated leaders who want to see them know Christ!
• that orientation has been going well!
• for the brothers and sisters supporting us in prayer back home :)

PLEASE PRAY

• for preparation for Omagari - where we'll be for the next 3 weeks for mission - we leave on FRIDAY!
• for Karen and Tracy, our team mates who are sick :( that they can rest so they can be serving with much energy :)
• for health - I'm starting to get the sniffles too! Apparently it could drop another 12-16 degrees to -10!
• for when my brother and I go to HK/China, that God will change the hearts of our parents and extended family (about 20-30 people combined who are all non Christians) so that they can see His glory, and for them to understand that as Christians we can't bow down to other gods/ancestors and they won't force us to or our parents won't force us to bow/sin, even if we don't want to worship the dead in our hearts.

THANK YOU!!! :)

more photos tomorrow when I load my photos through someone else's camera x)