A new sister! :-D

Tuesday morning, Cherie wasn't at Prayer and Worship Time (our team gets together every Tuesday and Thursday an hour early to have prayer and worship time. normally at 9, but this week-the most intense week of the trip-it was at 8!). As we were getting started, Megan let us know that Cherie wasn't joining us because earlier that morning she had just found out that one of the girls in her small group Bible study had died in a car accident last Friday. She was spending the morning calling her family and friends, trying to figure out what exactly was going on...

Needless to say, it was a tough week for her. Actually, it was a pretty intense and tough week for all of us. It was an exhausting schedule, we felt a lot of pressure to share with as many people as possible (put on us BY us), the weather was very much up and down, and each of the different teams had pretty discouraging times throughout the week. The great thing was, though, that at the end of the day, we'd all be together to encourage each other and build each other up.

On Wednesday, our team had our most discouraging day yet. At Gakushuin, we had our English lunch where a LOT of students came to chat, but we had about two spiritual conversations TOTAL, and after that, pretty much none of us got to have a real conversation with anyone. It was just a dry day of nothing happening and all of us feeling really really down about it all... But the other two teams had GREAT days and were able to encourage us. :)

Thursday, we had a FANTASTIC day! Chika and Kasumi are two girls that Christina and Cherie had met on our very first day on campus so long ago, and Christina had gotten to share the Gospel with both of them at some point. On Wednesday, Cherie had done some following up with both of them, going through the decision making part of the Gospel again, seeing what they thought. Thursday, we found out that Kasumi had decided to accept Christ into her heart! It was amazing! Christina got to give her a Bible and point out her favorite verses (all of which Kasumi was LOVING) and got to talk with her about a relationship with Jesus. Kasumi was SO excited about it all! Then, the three of us went outside, and I got to pray with her in Japanese- I got to pray, and then I got to hear her pray her first prayer ever- the simplest, most beautiful prayer ever. It really nearly moved me to tears. You can read Christina's blog for a more detailed account of this story, but it really was a powerful experience.

Woot.