Unexpected blessings

This trip is so fast-paced, I’m glad I was given the chance to skip the sight-seeing today to catch up on some communications and do some laundry. Tokyo Metropolitan Tower and the Imperial Palace are nice, but I’ve already seen them a few times. However, it’s been so fun to experience Japan with people who are here for the first time! They remind me to really delight in the little things like supermarkets and traveling on trains with all of our luggage during rush hour.

Surprise #1

Our time in the Osaka area was amazing. We stayed with a family who is renting an old school and using the land to teach others organic gardening, which is right up CRI’s alley when it comes to learning to live in sustainable community. When we finally arrived in Wakayama, we were picked up by (to my surprise) someone I knew from Asian Access! That’s the org with which I’ve mostly gone to Japan. He called his wife, so I got to catch up with her for a few minutes on the phone. Such an unexpected encouragement!

Surprise #2

Our first stop — since they felt we needed a cultural experience and some relaxation after 8 hours of lugging our bags through train stations — was the onsen, or public bath. I’m personally not a big fan of those. If I’m going to have a conversation with someone over some hot liquid, I’d rather it be a cup of coffee, and I’d much rather be fully clothed. However, in trying to find out some information for a teammate, I ended up talking to a woman who was a survivor of the recent floods. She’s a lumberjack. How cool is that? This particular area is covered with cedar forests, so that’s part of the main industry there. She showed us pictures of her house and told us about her experience. In the end, we got to pray over her. I was actually hoping to go back (that has to be the Holy Spirit because there is no way that desire is from me) the next night to talk more with her. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go with the rest of the team back to this particular bath house. However, I did get to hang out in another one with two women who are students from the house in which we were staying. Still, this was an unexpected opportunity in a place I didn’t even want to go!

Surprise #3

The owners of the house/school where we stayed are pretty influential in their area. While we were there, we met two city officials who are interested in what this family is doing: organic gardening and offering an education in that free of charge to anyone who is willing to learn by experience. The wife, in particular, seems interested in our faith and wanted to join us as we worshipped. Of course we invited her. One of the students there is also a city councilman in charge of creating an evacuation plan for situations such as the recent floods and typhoons. The location itself would be an ideal place for a CRI training in Japan. We had no clue about all of this until we got here and conversations revealed it all. What an unexpectedly perfect connection! If the owners came to know the Lord, they would be an incredible asset to the Kingdom in this place! Please pray them into His family!

Surprise #4

Ayako and Sayako are from Saitama (near Tokyo) and Hitachinaka (near where I used to live). By the end of the day, due to some logistical excitement, I was the only one left working in the farm with them. It was actually a divinely appointed time (thanks, all of you, who were praying for moments such as these!) where we could talk a little bit as we worked. During lunch, a Canadian universalist who worked for the city, stopped by to join us and two of our leaders and I ended up in a very interesting conversation with him. Actually, it was mostly the two leaders. I felt like I was supposed to just stay quiet and pray.

Aya-chan later asked me what that conversation was about, since it had been in English. I don’t have enough Japanese to explain philosophical and doctrinal concepts, but with her English and my Japanese, between sections of the fence we were repairing, I was able to explain to her the very basics of why our team was in Japan: because God loves the Japanese and the nation of Japan. Because we were constantly interchanging our conversation between that and the big question of which part of the fence to secure next, it didn’t seem like the time to share the gospel. Also, I felt like the Lord wanted me to wait so they wouldn’t feel like I was trying to “sell” her on it. I also had a short one-on-one time with Saya-chan as we walked back to the house from the field, but, again, didn’t feel like I was supposed to say anything yet. Still, I went to bed a little disappointed because I really wanted to see the conversation go in that direction. I was praying for a second chance, feeling a little bit like I had missed it, but the Lord had other plans.

The next morning, as we were getting ready to leave, I saw one of my teammates talking with Aya-chan and Saya-chan. They looked so fascinated and engaged in the conversation, and I could tell he was sharing the gospel, so I grabbed the woman next to me and told her to pray with me for them as they talked. It was so satisfying to see him follow up on what I wasn’t able to do the day before. What an unexpected answer to my prayer for a second chance! It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the one who shared it…that’s the beauty of the body of Christ. They’re still trying to figure things out, so please pray for their salvation.

Surprise #5

After traveling all day to Tokyo and going straight to a vision sharing meeting at the Tokyo House of Prayer, we returned to the Tokyo Biblical Church and crashed. We spent the morning in worship and prayer, and I felt like the Lord was reminding me how important it is to maintain a childlike posture with Him. He brought back to me the time Gen-chan (the two-year old son of the house/school owners in Wakayama) and J.J. (our 15 month old unofficial team mascot) were able to communicate without speaking a single word in the same language. He pointed out to me that Ayako and Sayako asked us to address them with the more youthful “-chan” suffix rather than the more respectable “-san,” and how ripe and ready they were for the gospel. I felt like He wanted to encourage us that, as His children, find other childlike Japanese and, without even needing an adult’s grasp of the language, we could communicate His heart and ours for them to join our family, to play with us. What an unexpected revelation! Please pray along the lines of this strategy…that His children would find each other, enjoy one another, and come to Him together as our loving Father who has adopted us into His family.

Thanks so much for praying! Sorry for the huge wall of text without any pictures. So much has happened, and for such a technologically-savvy country, we’ve had a really hard time getting internet access. My pictures are on my phone or my camera, neither of which I’m using to post this. Please keep praying for our team. Praise God that unity has been pretty exceptional for people who haven’t really known each other, half of us having met in LAX or Narita airport. Pray for health, too…some people are under the weather, and that weather is supposed to keep getting colder as the trip progresses. Thanks! Need to go catch a train now…