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