Thank you for your all of your support for the mission trip! I had an amazing time serving God through worship, the time spent with various members churches, and the conversations we had with the people we met in the different areas of Japan. Creating the relationships with the friendly and welcoming people over in Japan wouldn’t have been possible without your support!
To be honest, when we first arrived at Sakuragaoka church, I felt uncomfortable in a new environment, and although I attend the Nichigo service and speak japanese, I was shocked by how much I could not comprehend no matter how hard I tried. Luckily, after a few days passed I was able to comprehend the language easily and speak what I thought freely. Likewise, I was nervous during the first Sunday service at Sakuragaoka church, sitting on the pew not knowing what to expect. But as service ended and we had a chance to talk to numerous members of the church during lunch I knew I was in the right place and I knew what had to be done.
The rest of the trip went extremely well, but out of all the amazing moments I experienced, the times that I we had worship whether it was outdoors, during service or even in our “bedroom”/meeting room, touched me the most. The times I saw God with us the most was where we were singing my song, “Everything will be Alright”. Even though the majority of the people that heard the song did not know what it meant, I saw them worship Him through the movements/ dancing and the smiles on their faces as we sang it nearly everywhere we went. Even at the daycare center in Oue that we went to where most of the children were not Christian, they all had fun singing a song that worshiped Jesus singing “Everything will be alright in Jesus Christ”. Maybe it was because the children didn’t understand what the song meant, but every single one energetically followed Brandon, Hitomi and Sato as they did the hand movements while Joanne, Yuuki, and I accompanied them with instrumental music.
While many people, look at Japan as a “hunky-dory” country filled with amazing food and advanced technology, it is actually a country suffering in many ways. Many children do not see their parents most of the time due to the long periods of time their parents are gone working. Some parents don’t even live at home and live in an apartment by their office building and come to visit their family during the weekends. Many of the students in japan especially third years in junior high and seniors in high school have tremendous stress on them as they need to take tests that essentially lay out their future for them; thus leading to high suicide rates when the student does not make it into the school they want to go to. As for the Christian community in Japan, the team saw a large amount of rejection especially in the town of Oue where we handed out flyers only to be rejected with a “I don’t need/want it”. The Japanese population conforms to the society around them, making it difficult to convert or be introduced to a religion that has an extremely small community within Japan. I hope that even though we are in another country, that we can continue to pray for them as they are actually going through a hard time right now.
Overall, I don’t know how much I can thank you guys for this wonderful opportunity that the team got to spread God’s love while strengthening our own relationships with Him as we traveled to different locations in Japan. Thank you so much and I hope I will get the chance to do this again sometime!
No comments:
Post a Comment