Finally There! The process

We're Finally In JAPAN!!!! And it feels SO good to be overseas again. (I realized that before coming here it had been the longest amount of time that I had ever stayed in the US without going overseas...Two consecutive years!) I love experiencing different cultures and am so excited to have this opportunity for the next five weeks laboring for Christ. Thank you again to those who have partnered with me in order to make this trip possible! Let me share with you what's taken place up until now...

On Tuesday the 19th of May I arrived at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA to meet up with the 16 other people (14 students 2 directors) that I would be spending the next month and a half with. Briefing lasted until the morning of Friday the 22nd, and while there we had team times to get to know one another and learn more about what we would be doing in country.

On the night of the 19th after adding up the support that had been received by everyone, we were told that as a team we had $19,000 yet to raise in order to be able to fly out on Friday. After hearing the news, we all hit our knees (in prayer), our emails, and our phones to see if God would provide the rest of the money in the following 48 hours. And guess what, HE DID!! (God's pretty amazing like that!) Each time we met the number decreased, reassuring us that God had hand picked every one of us to go on this trip and wasn't going to leave us hanging (If we hadn't received the money the people who hadn't raised full support wouldn't have been able to get on the plane, so we're thanking God that the whole team is here!!) On top of that a passport that had been shipped for one of the team members was not put in the right house's mail box by the mail man the day before we left, so nobody knew where it was. Yet the morning we left God answered our prayers and the passport was found and picked up with plenty of time to spare. Isn't God awesome!?!!

So we all headed to the airport around 8:30am, and everything from there went smoothly. After 11 hours on a plane (that I spent mostly reading project orientation materials and chatting with the two teammates next to me) we landed in Tokyo! From there it was hopping on two trains with all our luggage to finally get to our new home (Koenji). We were all dead tired from the long day, and so right after getting to our rooms and having a brief apartment orientation meeting we hit the sack.

Sunday was mostly a day of resting and taking things slow, getting settled into the apartments and having some team meetings to discuss more of what we would be doing while here. To fill you in a little, our group of 15 students has been split into two "campus teams," that will be doing outreach on separate universities five days a week. I've been paired with one of the girls here to lead one of those teams and am really excited. As leaders we will be helping to shepherd our team members, encouraging them in ministry and giving them some direction as we go to our campuses. Please pray for humility and guidance for me as I take on this role. Right now I don't feel extremely equipped, but I was reminded today that this is a perfect opportunity to trust God and let him do ALL the leading. I know God's not in the business of calling the equipped, but equipping the called, so I'm excited to see how he'll stretch and grow me these next five weeks.

Today (Monday) we went to the Campus Crusade headquarters here and met the staff team that we'll be working alongside. They took us through another orientation and then we had a very helpful Q&A time where we were able to ask a lot of clarifying questions. After we were done our directors broke us off into small groups of three or four and sent us on a scavenger hunt where we had to find certain shops or items in one of the "down towns" of Tokyo: Shibuya (this also required us to find our way to Shibuya on the trains on our own)...let's just say we were asking a lot of random people if they understood english and/or if they could direct us to the places we were suppposed to get to. The activity was a lot of fun and we found that most of the poeple we asked were very willing to give the foreigners directions. My group's favorite activity was posing for pictures in a Japanese-style photo booth, where you can chose different backgrounds and themes for your pictures and then, after taking them, edit the pictures by drawing/writing/inserting objects into the picture before printing them out. Lot's of fun!

That brings us to tonight. Tomorrow will be our first day going on the university campuses that we're assigned to. We will mostly be getting a feel for the campus, figuring out what times activities happen/students are available, and praying over the campus. The whole team is excited to finally get on the campuses and start talking with Japanese students.

Please pray that God would soften the hearts of the Japanese students that we will be talking to and allow us to build fruitful relationships with them. Pray that our team will continue to mesh together well and grow to love each other more. Pray for protection from the attacks of evil one and from his attempts to bring disunity to our team. Pray for strength and energy as we go share the good news in this dark place, and pray that in all this God would be glorified and our own relationships with Him would continue to grow.

Until next time,
Matt