Japan Journal 2010

Our last day in Sapporo arrives. It`s hard to believe that our two week trip has already come to a close. Yesterday was a day of fun and fellowship with the church members at a giant Japanese `resort` of sorts. It was called Gateaux Kingdom, and there were indoor and outdoor pools, waterslides, an onsen, and a large buffet lunch. Everyone had fun, and we all enjoyed watching Eve, Chris and Nozomi`s two year old daughter, play in the water.

 

Last night, the Outsiders team got to be a part of a testimony time where both our team members and Japanese church members shared testimonies of what God has been doing in our lives and teaching us over the past year. Many people had been learning about the power of prayer, some shared about growing in their understanding of salvation, others in worship, and still others in what it means to follow Christ. It was a very encouraging time together, and we were all grateful to Stephen Long, who faithfully translated English to Japanese and Japanese back to English for almost two hours.

 

Today will be a time of reflection on what God has done over the past two weeks for the Outsiders team. We will have time to meditate on things we have learned from the Word, from our prayer times, and from our reading study. Then, the afternoon will bring some free time to wrestle all of our stuff back into our suitcases before we split up for dinner at the different homes of the Japanese church members.

 

Half of our team will wake up at 5am tomorrow to head back to the States. The other half will remain here in Sapporo for a few more weeks of ministry, fellowship and encouragement. There are two weddings at Grace Church coming up in the next few weeks too, and our team members who are staying will be able to be apart of those celebrations. Congratulations to Rutsu and Washimi – and also to Yoshio and Midori!

 

What a great trip! A lot of ministry and fellowship was packed into two weeks, and all of us on the Outsiders team are extremely grateful to the Lord for raising up the funds we needed to come over here to minister. Thank you to all of you who supported our team through prayer and finances – may God receive all the glory!

 

For Prayer:

1)      For the soon-to-be-married couples that their marriages would reflect the beautiful mystery of Christ and the Church and be a testimony to a watching world.

2)      For the six team members who are returning to the States that the flight will be safe, and no one will get sick (that seems to happen at the last minute every year).

3)      For future ministry opportunities with Grace Church – that those whom God wants to send next year will feel the joyful burden to go and respond to the Lord`s prompting. May our two churches continue to partner to reach the world with the good news of Jesus Christ!

 

Between the Let`s Enjoy English time on Wednesday, and the two concerts this weekend, we have had a total of 60 non-believers come to hear about Jesus.

 

To give you an idea of how the concerts work, we split them up into chunks. During the first section, Ryan welcomes everyone and explains just a little bit about why we as Americans have come to Japan (to spread the good news of Jesus Christ), and then the band plays three songs. Each song has a power-point slide on which there are English lyrics and Japanese line by line translation. Each song is chosen to highlight the character and person of Jesus Christ and what he did for us.

 

After the first three songs, a Japanese church member comes up and gives a testimony of how Christ changed his or her life. This is a short snippet for the audience to see how Jesus is God and he is a God of transformation.

 

Then the band performs the second set of three songs, followed by an artistic visual presentation by David Rawlins. This year, David did a piece where he painted a jumbled picture over the surfaces of six boxes, and then in the middle of the song that played during his performance time, he took apart the whole tower of boxes, rearranged them, and put them back together to form a black and white painting of Christ on the cross.

 

After David finishes, Kamidate-sensei takes the stage and explains the gospel according to scripture. This year was the first year that we had the option to listen to simultaneous translation while the pastor preached, so I heard the concert message for the first time! Pastor Kamidate did a great job taking the listeners through explanation of sin and the need for redemption. Then he explained clearly how Christ came to pay the penalty of those sins.

 

The final flourish on the concert is that the band comes back up and plays one more song to highlight the gospel. This year`s closing song was the old hymn with a new twist, `Jesus Pait It All`. After that, the church members immediately pounce (with much grace and love) on the visitors and take them through the gospel again, clearing up any questions and offering to do one on one Bible studies with them over the next few months for those who are interested.

 

We are so encouraged by our Japanese brothers and sisters. To see them evangelize to their family, friends and strangers really highlights to us how much they understand what they have been forgiven. To minister in a church and evangelize to the lost is a `religious burden` to those who do not truly understand the gospel, but to those who realize their sinfulness and see the wonderful freedom Christ has given us (and nothing can separate us from his love after that), sharing about who he is and what he has done is joy! Lord, let Castleview be characterized as a people who so love and revere your name that we are all bursting at all times to tell the good news to anyone who will give us two seconds of their time! And may those who aren`t willing to give us two seconds get stuck next to us on airplanes and in waiting rooms at the doctor`s office!

 

Prayer Requests:

1)      For former church members (are now teenagers) Hannah Adachi and Noah Nakajima (who both came to the concerts this weekend). They know the truth about Christ, and understand that if they died today they would be under the wrath and judgment of God in hell, but they still refuse to believe. Please pray that God will transform their hearts to believe and be pulled out of the pits they have dug for themselves.

2)      For the sixty visitors to be saved! We know that God could open the eyes of every person in Japan, so we want to pray with faith that these sixty would believe in Jesus!

3)      For the Outsiders that we would finish well. We have two days left to spend with the church members – encouraging them and sharing testimonies of what Christ is doing in our lives. We don`t want to give into the temptation to `vacation` now that the concerts are over.

 

The 7:30 start time arrived and the room was packed with many first time visitors and some repeats, and our topic of conversation was `Why did the Outsiders come to Japan?`. I have to confess, it was quite an exciting thing to see two or three Japanese people who had lived in America for a number of years and were looking to brush up on their vocabulary. You better believe they learned some new words like `gospel`, `wrath` and `substitutionary sacrifice`. What is so nice is that most Japanese will listen politely the first time they meet anyone, so our team being there to talk with them in these first conversations was crucial. We felt so blessed to be a part of `Let`s Enjoy English` and be able to share the gospel in our own language.

 

Thursday morning brought separate agendas for the girls and the guys. The girls got to accompany Chris Juday to a local elementary school where we participated in a trial run of English teaching through games and activities with the fifth graders. Grace Church is hoping to establish a continued relationship with that particular school, and we believe this first trial meeting will be promising for further contact. Holly Gordon led big group games in the gym during the first hour we were there. All the fifth grade classes had gathered together and we worked on number vocabulary as well as sports names in English. Then for the second hour we were there, we split up and went to individual classrooms and helped them practice their greetings, taught about our hometown, and helped them memorize a new song in English. It was a blast. Some of those Japanese fifth graders were just so teeny tiny and cute that I personally wanted to grab one and take him or her home with me. But I thought that might hurt relations between the church and the school, so I exercised the fruit of the spirit of self-control…this time.

 

The guys had the opportunity to serve one of the church members, Chikako Ishida, who was moving, by hauling all of her furniture and boxes down from her old apartment, loading them into a van, then hauling them up to her new apartment. While doing so, they also had a chance to minister to Dr. Ishida`s son, Ippei, who recently has needed some encouragement and Christian fellowship.

 

In the afternoon, the girls took their turn at Dr. Ishida`s old apartment, helping her daughter, Sumi, clean and tidy up the place before they turned the keys back over to the landlord. It was quick work for five girls to clean every surface of a tiny Japanese apartment and good fellowship with each other.

 

Thursday evening was really special. The guys from our team took a number of the teenage guys from Grace Church out for sushi and fellowship, and the girls met three of the Grace church ladies for dinner and shopping. It was a night of rest for the wonderful team of cooks that normally prepares all our meals at church (otherwise, we would need to raise a whole lot more support for this trip), and it was some time to love on the church members.

 

Ryan and I had the privilege of going to dinner with the pastor, his wife, and Stephen Long. Stephen has been such a huge help with his translating skills, and it was a wonderful night of conversation. We got to hear a bit of the pastor`s vision for the future of this church and his hopes for the church members at Grace church. He is a man of great faith and broad vision, and I pray that we can learn from him as he follows the Lord with his whole heart. We were also chuckling over dinner about how alike pastor Kamidate and pastor Eric from Castleview are in their long-range visions for the church and their deep passion for Scripture. We`ve decided that if they are in a room together long enough, they might cause a supernova of pastoral vision so powerful that it might cause a rift in the space-time continuum. Or something like that.

 

Prayer Requests:

1)      Per pastor Kamidate: that the Lord would raise up a man to pastor Grace Church in the future and other men to assist him in leadership of the church in the next generation.

2)      That the Lord would provide the money needed and the right timing for Grace Church to buy the land next door to the church so that they can build a much needed larger facility for their fast-growing numbers.

3)      That God would raise up young men who are ready to plant churches in Hokkaido, the rest of Japan, and the world.