Agape 2014 Trip Recap Video

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Thank you for all of your support!

We could not have done it without your prayers and donations! We know that God has great things in store for the people of Japan, and we hope that you will remember them in your prayers.

Reflections : Yuuki

Thank you so much for all of your support toward us. The support went out to accomplish our trip to go reach out to the people in Yamagata/Miyagi, Sakuragaoka church, Koganeichurch, and the kids at VBS. I am very thankful to do work of evangelizing there and to interact with the Christians there. 

Through this trip, I felt the holy spirit around me during my stay at Yamagata/Miyagi prefecture and at the VBS when I was playing with the kids. There were trials during the trip such as the rejections we got when we gave out the flyers of the Ooechou church. Even though the rejections scratched our hearts, it made our hearts stronger against rejection like taking a vaccine. Like in James 1:2~1:4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." we are always tested by God for a complete faith and through this mission trip, we have been through many trials like rejection from the flyers. 

I thank you all for this great experience from this mission trip so that I can learn and benefit my faith by interacting with the Christians in Japan. 

Reflections : Satomi

I am so thankful for all of your support for the Japan Mission Team this year! We had many opportunities to interact with people, young and old, and had a full schedule during the two weeks. I was able to see God use each of the team member’s unique talents and strength to worship, encourage, and share God’s love despite our fears and insecurities. It is through your prayers and donations that we were able to meet and encourage the people in Japan, as well as serve alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ.

This was my fourth mission trip to Japan, and each time, God has taught me something new. This time, I left Japan with a greater insight into why it has been so hard for Christianity to spread in Japan. Listening to many of the Japanese pastors and church-goers, I realized that there are deep-rooted cultural traditions and ways of thinking that make it very difficult to bring people to Christ. Christians in Japan face persecution from their peers at school and work. It is the norm to work late into the night and even on weekends, which also keep people from participating in the church community.

However, the Christians I met at Sakuragaoka, Koganei, and Yamagata understand this challenge and are dedicated to spreading the gospel despite all of the obstacles.They inspired me to not take my faith and my life for granted, because there are people around me, both near and far, that do not know the agape love of God, and the true hope that we find in Christ. It may still be an uphill battle, but I hope that you will join me in praying for the people of Japan--for those who do not know Christ yet and for those who do, so that their faith may be strengthened and renewed.

Reflections : Hitomi

First of all, thank you so much for all of your support for the mission trip! I had the most amazing time in Japan, and I would like to share you some things that really stood out to me during the trip.

During the time we were in Japan, we were discussing about how all the Christians in Japan are really serious about their faith, and Joanne went and said, "Why aren't WE serious about our faith? Why aren't WE serious about helping others grow as a Christian?" That really stood out to me because it is really amazing how passionate the people at church are about loving God. At Yamagata, I heard some testimonies from the Sakuragaoka church and the Oe church. Those testimonies really helped me understand that they absolutely love serving God even amongst the hardships of being a Christian in Japan. They love Him so much and I now know that I want to be more passionate about my faith. I also talked to a lady who was affected by the disaster, and even though her story was extremely sad, she has not given up on life yet. These people I talked to are dealing with so much and they still have not given up. I want to be a person that doesn't give up on life because God is always there for me.

I was also able to understand the power of worship much better than I did before. When Bradley shared his testimony, he talked about how worship basically lead him closer to God. Also during the trip, we were given the opportunity to worship many times and every time I sang, I felt a surge of God's love pour into my heart. Being able to express our love towards God in the form of music is such a beautiful thing and I really didn't fully understand that until this trip.

Lastly, I want to talk about the last service in Japan I went to. It was in Koganei church, and it was an absolutely emotional day for me. During service, I started to cry my eyes out because I felt so sad I was leaving everybody and I felt so grateful for what God did in my life. Even after I said goodbye to everybody, I cried the whole ride back because my heart was overwhelmed with God's love. Love CHANGES people. Love changed ME. Through love I was able to go on a mission trip for the first time, be the first to share my testimony in Japan, sing my heart out to God, interact with the people in Japan, and grow as a disciple of God. I am still amazed by God's AGAPE love. God is good.

Reflections : Bradley

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!

Reflections: Brandon

Thank you for helping us and supporting us during our mission trip in Japan.  Through our songs, testimonies, ministries and through your resources and prayer we were able to meet many people of very different backgrounds and God was able to use us to speak to them.

I may not ever meet these people again and continue to build my relationships with them, encouraging them in their struggles (though I certainly do hope to do so).  Having supported others indirectly in their mission trips as you have, I understand that you likely feel even more disconnected from the lives of the people we touched.  I understand that it can be discouraging for us when we don’t see the results of our work, a lot like giving someone a gift and feeling bad if they don’t say “thank you” or if you never see them use the gift.  I encourage you now to not be discouraged or dismissive of your own efforts for each person’s relationship with God is obviously between the two of them so He will continue to take care them and use what we (you and me) have done our best to give no matter how small or poorly given.

Now was all that talk about encouragement, morale, and disconnection still a bit heavy and discouraging?  Let me remind you (and please remind me as well if you notice that I forget) that we can always continue to support the people of Japan through our prayers among other more difficult methods of support.  If you’d like something a bit more specific to focus your efforts on:

• That big earthquake and tsunami disaster was several years ago and people are beginning to forget about it so the majority of the relief efforts have long-since dissipated despite the fact that many of the survivors are still struggling to recover.  When our team served in the Sendai, Miyagi area, one of the sites at the forefront of the disaster, we heard from the locals that the only people who ever really visited and shared life with them were Christian groups and churches.  While encouraging to know that God is continuing to use His followers there and that the people there now have relatively positive connotations with Christ, it’s quite tragic how much they still struggle to survive.  Here’s a great opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives whether you’re a Christian or not.
• The Sakuragoaka church asked for prayer for their numerous summer camps they were having as we left to stay with the Koganei church.  I think by now they are probably done with them because summer vacation is very short in most Japanese schools but I’m sure the prayer request extends to the continued growth and effects of the various people who attended the camps.
• Whether you consider yourself to be in strong relationship with Jesus or not, it’s easy to forget here in the USA how diverse and open people are about religions, worldviews, philosophies, and beliefs.  That’s not to say that there aren’t still various forms of persecution, stereotyping, hostility, hatred and ridicule of them.  In Japan however, it is very difficult to be a Christian, one of the reasons being the lack of a supportive Christian community simply because there are so few.  Prayer for the churches and Christians there in general would be appreciated I’m sure.
• The Oecho church in Oue asked specifically for prayer for the spiritual growth and their ministry in the the town of Oue (we learned there that Oue has a long history of Christian persecution), for new pastors at their church, and for the youth of Oecho.
• The wife of Miyakawa-sensei, he’s the senior pastor at the Koganei church, got one of her fingers cut off in some kind of bicycle accident while we were there.  I don’t think I saw her or met her but I heard when she got to the hospital, they asked her where her finger was so she had to go back and find what was left of it so they could put it back on.  I’m fairly certain they’d appreciate prayer for her healing.

Thank you again for all your support.  Take care.