Day 20 - 24:
July 23rd - 27th, 2011
Hello Everyone!
 
This week has continued in our theme of "God works in mysterious ways"! The Lord keeps the surprise opportunities coming! We arrived in Hiroshima on Saturday around noon. When we got to the church they were having an outreach for mothers and their children. The building was full of people! Pastor Lee asked if we would be able to do a few dances after lunch. We said, "sure!". I got to share why we dance for Jesus, we did one of our Japanese dances and then we taught the children some dance steps. It was a fun, unplanned, God opportunity. This week in addition to us, there's a Korean team of 17 people staying at Pastor Lee's church. They are here for a 10 day mission trip. They use testimonies, music, skits, and dance to share the gospel. It has been really fun to team up in ministry with them this week.
That Saturday afternoon we drove for 3 hours to what they told us was, "A really countryside church", called Yananhara Church. Our team and about 6 members of the Korean team, piled into cars for our adventure. The drive was BEAUTIFUL!  Seeing the gorgeous countryside left us in awe of our awesome Creator. That night we got to fellowship with people from the church and the sweet, sweet pastor's wife took such good care of us.

Sunday morning the Korean team shared a testimony, song and dance. Then Pastor Lee spoke about living for Christ and what that looks like. After that they gave us an hour for ministry. As we danced and shared testimonies, we really felt the Lord at work. This church was SO happy to have two young teams from other countries visit their church. They do not have many young people at their church and they felt honored that we would come all that way to minister to them. They said they felt it was "God's gift to them". After we danced we had lunch with the church and said our goodbyes and drove the 3 hours back to Hiroshima.
 
That evening we had dinner, fellowship, singing and prayer time with the Korean team. It was so wonderful to sit together and worship. We had a surprise," dance competition"!  Which really meant, they show us one of their dances and we show one of ours. Just another fun God opportunity!  My favorite thing that night was singing, "God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He's so good to me". Sweet worship with our brothers and sisters from Japan and Korea. All serving the same God and here for the same purpose. We also spent time praying together. At one point they had us go in the middle of the room and their team prayed for us and our ministry. God truly is, so good.
 

Monday we (Pastor Lee's family, the Korean team and CMA girls) left for Kid's Camp (only about 20 min away from the church). Every year a group of churches comes together to hold this outreach event. We were not sure what to expect, but it was great! We stayed in a building, nestled in the beautiful green mountain top. We were so happy to be at camp! With our bunk beads and everything! There are so many sweet little girls (6-7yr) for us to love on. They all come from non-Christian homes, some have never heard about Jesus and some have heard a little. We were so excited to plant seeds and help draw these girls to their Jesus.

Here is what our schedule looked like:

Monday night: 20min performance and testimony
 
Tuesday:
 
- Morning worship
 
- 2 hour dance workshop for the girls
Erica taught ballet, Katrina shared a devotional and taught a dance, Naomi taught Israeli, and Christine taught leaps and turns!

- Lunch
 
- Break (hike/exploring adventure)
 
- Craft time

- Dinner
 
- 50 min performance geared towards the children

We were trying to come up with testimony ideas for these little girls. "Lord, what do they need to hear?" God inspired us to do a skit! Katrina was the narrator, working with our friend and awesome translator, Pastor Kato. They told the story of a girl, Hannah, who goes through life not knowing her own beauty or worth. She cares only about how others see her, not as God sees her. She carries burdens and hurts from what people have spoken into her life. She is left broken. She then meets her creator, God. He tells her how He sees her. Tells her of His love for her and that He made her perfectly just the way He wanted her. He takes off the rags, the burdens and fears left by others. In the end, Hannah is able to keep her eyes fixed on Jesus, follow Him and trust in His love for her. The skit went so well, we could feel God's presence and Him working powerfully through the words and the movements. We also danced that night and we had the girls show the dance they had learned earlier that day. Naomi shared about her sister's adoption and told how we were all chosen by God and how He wants to adopt us into His family. It was a wonderful way for her to talk about salvation and giving your life to the Lord.
 
- Campfire!

We had a wonderful time of praise, worship, message and prayer around the campfire!
 
Wednesday:
 
- Morning worship
 
- The Korean team's ministry time
 
- Lunch
 
"It was encouraging to hear how God is at work in the lives of the little girls at the camp. Our dear friend Kumiko shared with us that one of the girls in her group was really touched by the skit we did last night. This little girl had struggled with fear and insecurity and really understood the message that God loved her and made her uniquely. She grasped the idea that she should not listen to the voices in her life that say she is not good enough. Praise God for making the message of His love clear to this precious one! Her mother and grandmother (both unsaved) attended the concert last night and were so surprised and pleased to see their little girl dancing up on stage without shyness. We know that God's Word never returns void and continue to pray for these little ones to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus." ~Naomi

 
- Drive back to Hiroshima church, repack and get on a train!

 
We are leaving this afternoon to travel to the Tokyo area where we will spend the night. Then on Thursday someone will drive us up to Fukushima, (Iwaki city) where we will do relief work.

Here are some of our prayer request for our time in Fukushima:

• Naomi has been sick the past few days, yucky cough and not much energy.
• Hannah has some food allergies that triggers pain in her body. Pray for the right food and nutrients she needs. Also please continue to pray for her back and knee.
• Katrina is still battling her cold, but doing a little better (The rest of us are feeling good right now)
• Pray for abundant provision emotionally and spiritually. With all our eyes and hearts will be experiencing, please pray for strength.
• Pray for God's Protection
• That God would give us His eyes, hands and hearts for the people we meet
• For divine appointments
• For our travel
• For relationships with the people we will work with at the church. This is our first time to go to this area and work with these people. We really feel the Lord wants us to be a refreshment to the workers at this church. Ask that the Lord would show us how to do that and that we would not miss any opportunities that He has for us. 
• Pray that the Lord would continue to strengthen our team, deepening our love and support for one another. One of our prayers the past few days is that we would keep our eyes fixed on God and who He is, and also to remember that with God, nothing is impossible!

 

Thank you so, so, much for your prayers!

You may not hear from us for about a week. We don't know how much, if any, internet access we will have.  We will update you again as soon as we can!
 

To God be all the Glory!