Happy Father's Day to all you dads!!! I hope and pray your Sunday is fun-filled and refreshing spiritually, relationally and physically! To you dads, thank you for exemplifying the Great Love of our Heavenly Father to your family and to the people around you, I'm sure they are proud to call you dad!
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Well, I want to take just a few minutes to update you on what's been happening here in Tokyo, because this is probably my last e-mail while on project!!! Monday was my 22nd birthday, and my hardest day on campus so far. My partner Kimi and I had lunch with some students who have been interested in learning more about Jesus but are very hesitant which is totally draining and then we flat out got rejected to sit down and talk with every group of girls at all three cafeterias on campus. That was harsh, so we sat down and prayed for a while. By the time we had to leave God had thoroughly reminded us to "Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted in all the nations, I will be exalted in all the earth" with or without us, (psalm 46:10) and that He is pursuing people even if He doesn't choose to use us for it. We left knowing God loves people more than we do and that He never tires or grows weary, even if we do (Is. 40).
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Anyways, we got back and my teamate Emily had gotten me a birthday present with some bath stuff in it which was titled "Happy Bath Day" , hehe, which I thought was hilarious and corny, so for Date night with Jesus I chilled in the bathtub with some worship music and a book. When date night was over Em asked me to come with her grocery shopping and when we got back to the room all the lights were off... and the whole team jumps out at me!!! They threw me a surprise party with chocolate and strawberry cake and some games, then some of us went and danced in the rain. It was perfect.
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The next day I met with 2 girls who came to the discover friends party and we talked about God over lunch for a couple of hours. Its so crazy, one of the girls had gone to a christian high school and had heard some of the gospel, but the other girl, Nozomi was hearing it all for the very first time. She said it was a very beautiful story and it all seems logical, but its so strange because she's used to thinking of all these spirits that you have to please and worship. I hope I can meet with her again before we leave. Wednesday was a great easy relaxing day on campus for me, just building relationships with new Japanese friends and as a team we all went out for "Shabu Shabu" or Japanese hot pot, a treat where you cook beef and pork and veggies in sauce on your table and eat it with noodles and raw egg, it was delish! Afterwards the whole team bonded over Karaoke!
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Thursday was also great because Em and I had dinner with Arisa, the girl I had met at the bakery and talked with for 4 hours last week. She taught us how to make omanomi yaki, a seafood, cabbage, egg, and sauce "pancake" which is baked on the tabletop. We got to talk a little bit more about God, but she said she still has a lot of questions. This girl is getting so close to committing her life to God and I am feeling totally privaleged to watch it happening!! I'm very sure that we can "be confident of this, that He who began a good work in [her] will follow it to completion" (Philippians 1:6).
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Friday was also amazing! Wow, so wednesday the girls arrived home to flowers, chocolate and an invite on the table for dinner on Friday night from all the men on project, indicating we should dress expectant for a night of fine dining. So, they picked us up with a white rose for each of us and a smile and escorted us to our dinner location where they prayed over us, read an original poem they had written and fine dined us while being complete gentlemen then entertained us with an original skit about how project would be if there were no girls! It was awesome :) Saturday we all went to Tokyo Disney and had a blast being little kids again and resting from ministry! Sunday was spent recovering and going to meetings.
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Wow, sorry, that was such a long paragraph. Please pray for us this week as we're getting pretty tired and a lot of us caught colds from Disney, but we're trusting the Lord can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine and that it is his power within us that is at work (Ephesians 3:14-21). This wednesday is our last full day on campus and then an American themed goodbye party which will be crucial for some closure with our friends and a smooth transition for passing contacts to someone who can pour into them here, like student impact staff or student leaders. Thursday will be a busy night of a surprise activity the project directors have for us and then packing and cleaning the apartments. Friday we head on out in the morning to end of project retreat which is also a surprise location. We fly back to LA on the 29th for 2 days of intense defriefing and us Michiganders will be back in Detroit late on July 2nd. Thank you for your faithfulness in prayer for me and my team and for the Japanese. Please continue to pray for Japan! The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few!!!
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with sincerity and eager expectation of the Lord's unfolding work and also excitement to tell you more about what God did to multiply your financial, emotional, and prayer support!!!!
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Jess
