Praise Report!!!

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Tokyo, sunny for once and getting more humid by the day as the rainy season is closing out. This week was beautiful as well, certainly a challenge for all of the team. We had set individual ministry goals, personal goals, and exceedingly more goals (something only God could do) and it was amazing to see what God did!
.
Praise report!!!
.
*Several of our friends came to the Discover Friends party, many of them hearing the full gospel for the first time and many of them feeling warmly welcomed and intrigued about the gospel. A couple of them we are sure are saved now!!!! It all goes to show that it is God who saves and we are just his tools, his clay pots containing treasure inside! God is the one who is faithful, even if our faith is small and weak.
*On Monday my teamate Kimi and I got to talk with a Chinese exchange student for a couple of hours who has been involved with Student Impact and had become a believer just the day before! It was incredibly encouraging for us to see her enthusiasm and zillions of questions and fascination at God, praise God that when she goes back, she has one friend who is a christian in Shanghai that she can connect with!
*Thursday night I met for coffee with a student I met at a bakery when she waited on me, (I think she is totally a divine appointment especially given the circumstances!). Anyways, we met and she was one of those very rare students you come accross that I feel I have been friends with for years already and that is open to conversation about deep things and sharing what she really thinks about them. We talked about everything from Japanese and American culture to politics, our lives, and then about trusting Jesus as the only way to God. It was so crazy because she was telling me about so many opportunities in her life to learn more about God, but in each case there was something blocking her from it, one time it was not knowing English very well, another was not having a bible, and another was not knowing anyone who could share with her and then she said, "and now I am sitting here talking with you, and I think I need to learn about God!" She told me her parents don't care about religion at all, but they always go to the temple and pray on New Years Day. She told me, "its strange, when I prayed, I never thought of the God I was praying to as the one Japanese think of, those ones are small, I always thought of God the way you think about him". We were talking about so much, including the trinity, Jesus' sacrifice and all of it she genuinely was soaking up like a sponge and seeming to understand what I was saying even with a little language barrier! We were deeply immersed in the gospel when the coffee shop waitress came over and said something in Japanese. I asked Arisa what she said, and she told me the girl was telling us the shop was closing in 10 minutes. We looked at the clock and realized we had been talking for over 4 hours and didn't even notice the time! I saw her the next morning at the bakery and she told me she read some of the bible I gave her AFTER we had already talked about God for 4 hours! It's so crazy! We are trying to find a time that we can both meet again this week and I am so amazed at God right now for this!
.
Prayer requests!
.
*Please pray for our Japanese friends who are openly and publicaly christians, they are so very rare in Japan and it is hard for them socially, especially at home, however I am learning from them how God uses our hardships to strengthen us and draw us near to him and develop passion! They are teaching me to look beyond my circumstances and know that there is One who loves and gives grace and everything that we need, so that we can have joy in any trial, knowing that we have eternal life with Him! Please pray that God would increase their Joy in Him and give them boldness to live a lifestyle of evangelism.
*Please pray for my team, we are getting physically and emotionally and spiritually drained after doing weeks of full time ministry in slow simple English and being stretched in surrendering this project to God's control and plans. We all love it and are learning so much from each other, but we need some refreshment, and so do the JCCC staff and student leaders! Please pray for endurance and that we learn how to rest in God when we need it!
*Please pray for our Japanese contacts that in this last week and a half that we are on campuses that God would continue to soften their hearts to Him and that He would move in them to understand the Gospel and that the transition in giving our contacts over to JCCC staff and students would go smoothly and that God would just in general loose His abundant blessings on Japan CCC, increasing the harvest and the laborers for it!
.
Thanks for your faithfulness! I'm totally grateful for your prayers and for allowing the Lord to work through you in your part of this mission!
.
With so much Joy in Him,
.
Jess