Week 2 Update

What an encouraging week! With the exception of one fairly big complication that God still used to direct my campus team, the week went really well...God knew we needed the encouragement!

The week started out on Monday with my team going to Gaidai University. One of the big encouragements of that day was that Emily ended up sitting with a girl who started asking lots of questions about Christianity. Not only was she able to share the gospel with her, but she gave her a Japanese translation of the Bible. Immediately the girl read straight through the first eight chapters of Matthew! Emily is going to be following up with her and you can pray that her hunger grows. The day was also encouraging for me because I got to meet with Gen (the Project Director) to talk about how project was going for me and share what I had been learning. That night was Date Night with Jesus. Reading all the way through the book of Hebrews in one sitting was something I've been wanting to do and hadn't gotten around to yet, so I decided to do that for my date. I absolutely love the concept of Jesus as our Great High Priest, and it was really nice to be reminded that we may have confidence to approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and grace: super encouraging.

The highlight from Tuesday night was definitley Men's time in the evening. The second half of the guys shared their testimonies (the first half did so the week before) and it was awesome! We really fought for our brothers through prayer as God broke down walls that had been built in some of our lives. It was amazing to see some wounds that had been burried for so long come to the surface and begin to be healed. How freeing!

Wednesday we were back at Gaidai and had an impromptu "English Lunch." A few of the Japanese Cru (Student Impact) staff came to the campus at lunch time and told us to go invite some students to come eat lunch with us. I felt a little silly doing so, but there was a good handful of students that accepted our invitation. After I had chatted with one person for a while, one of the staff named Shi-wen (or Nicole) asked me to come with her to speak to two girls who wanted to practice their english. Eventually they asked me why I had come to Japan and I told them about the Christian "circle" (that's what they call clubs here) that I'm a part of in the US. After they asked more about it I asked if I could tell them about Christianity and what I believed. They then allowed me to take them through a Japanese four laws booklet while Shi-wen clarified (in Japanese) anything they didn't really understand. They were so interested! and at the very end they were asking Shi-wen how it could be that easy and how God's gift could be free! When they left they said they'd try to come back next week, and I gave them both a copy of the four laws booklet to take home. That was really encouraging for me! And to add to that one of my roommates, Joe, who's on the other campus team got to see someone accept Christ on the same day! Isn't God great!! Please pray for Yuichi's new walk with the Lord, and that Joe will be able to follow up with him and encourage him in actively pursuing God.

It was also on Wednesday, however, that we found out that my campus team and Student Impact staff was banned from our first university campus ICU (the complication). The ICU administration has apparently become very concerned about cults coming onto the campus and believe that we're associated with one. We learned that they had gotten a list of students involved in Student Impact and had been watching them and observing the Student Impact staff for quite some time. It might have been our presence on campus that put the administration "over the top," but one of the Student Impact members was called in and scolded, and told that our team and the staff was not allowed on campus again. This was definitely hard to hear, and you can pray that God would soften the hearts of ICU's administration to allow Staff (and us) back on to the campus. For now, we will be going to Gaidai University every day except Tuesday (I'll explain in a bit). Yet even though this was somewhat bad news for us, God totally used the situation to direct our team and give us another outreach opportunity...

This week at the ICU highschool (right across from ICU) was Christianity week. Four people on our team were going to go to one class at the highschool on Thursday and two on Friday to share their testimonies with the class and then break up to lead discussion groups. Yet due to being banned from ICU, the whole team of 8 was able to go to the highschool. As a result, the discussion groups that each one of us lead were much more intimate with only about 5 students instead of 10. A lot of us were able to have great conversations in our groups and were even able to share the gospel with the high schoolers! We were talking about it later, and none of us could imagine that happening if only four students had gone. We also held a "picnic" lunch gathering at the high school on Friday to speak english with anyone who wanted to come. It was raining at the time, so our "picnic" was held in a classroom and less students showed up, but it was still a great opportunity. It was really neat to see how God used the "bad" situation of being kicked off ICU to guide all of us to the highschool: just another reminder of His sovereignty! Now the whole team will be going to the highschool every Tuesday to hold the picnic lunches. You can pray that future Tuesdays will be sunny so that more people will come!

So that was this week. We were all pretty tired going into the weekend, but definitely encouraged. Yesterday we went to the famous fish market - quite a fun experience (I'll try to post pictures later on), and then went to eat fresh sushi right next to it afterwards. In the afternoon I was able to rest for a bit (SO needed) and then most of us went to a big park and threw a frisbee, bumped a volleyball, and kicked a soccer ball. That was also really refreshing and wonderful time to be around some green in the midst of all the cement.

This next week is going to be a challenging one as we're going to be trusting God with specific goals and going to our campuses for a little longer each day. (I'll try to give you more details next time). Please pray that we will rely on His strength and that in the midst of it all we will find REST in Him. You can also pray for encouraging conversations and that we will continue to build lasting relationships with the Japanese students. Thank you again SO much. I appreciate all your prayers and hope that you are also encouraged in what the Lord is doing over here.

God Bless You!
Matt