Date Night

So Sunday night after we had our worship session that got shut down (:-D), the team FINALLY ventured out to the local McDonald's! The food was surprisingly similar to, and in some cases better than, the American counterparts! But we goofed around a lot, and just had some great, joyful bonding times as a family. Here are some pictures from that night.





Monday was another great day at Waseda. Our Project co-leader Megan went with us to campus this time, and the six of us sat down to have lunch together to see who we could have conversation with. It was a little slow, but we got a few conversations in here and there. But these two girls sat down by us, and Christina immediately started talking with them. One was a Japanese girl named Junko who seemed not-too-excited to talk. The other was a Chinese girl named Cecilia. She spoke fairly good English, and she was very excited to talk with Christina. Turns out, she wants to study abroad in America, and is going to LA in July to check out USC cuz that's where she wants to go!!! SMALL WORLD. Or divine appointments. :) So we got super excited, and I told her that I'd show her around when she came. Well, the four of us kept on talking about different things, and one thing led to another, and somehow it transitioned to me pulling out two tracts for them to look at, and then we both got to share the gospel with them- Christina with Cece and I with Junko. It was pretty awesome double sharing! Junko was VERY closed off, and seemed to be rejecting what I was saying, but she definitely listened to everything, and now there's one more soul who's heard the Gospel! We prayed for her, now that the seed has been planted. Cece, on the other hand, was LOVING it! She said, "That's beautiful!" when Christina explained the Father's love, and when talking about the sacrifice, Cece replied, "I think I want to learn to forgive." She was very moved by the Gospel's message and asked lots and heard lots. She didn't accept on the spot, but we are definitely praying hard for her and pursuing a continued relationship with her. Ryo (the guy I shared the Gospel with last Thursday) and Cece are both coming back to English lunch on Friday to hang out with me and Christina, and Ryo's even coming to a CCC-sponsored social event on Friday night with me- we're planning on having dinner together first. Both of them sent us encouraging emails today telling us about how much they enjoyed getting to know us, and that they want to keep being friends. PLEASE PRAY FOR THESE STUDENTS! They are so ready! And pray that Christina and I and everyone else on the Project would love on all the students we meet, persistently showing them Christ's love.

Monday night was probably one of my highlights of Project so far. It was called Date Night with Jesus, and each of the 17 kids on Project spent two hours of the night on a Date with Jesus. We all went our separate ways with our Bibles, Journals, iPods, whatever we wanted to take on our one-on-one, special time with Jesus. I went to MisterDonut (my favorite donuts EVER) and bought a donut, a cup of coffee, and sat down at the counter to read and journal. I asked to hear Jesus' words from the Holy Spirit, and God answered! I was led to read Isaiah 59, which was POWERFUL. God spoke to me and convicted me so much through His words there, and I ended up journaling 11 pages on the one chapter! It was painful to hear some of what He had to say to me, but the quality time we got to spend together was just amazing and I learned so much from that time! I went home, relaxed, rejoicing, singing songs of praise to God for a while, and then Beau and I stayed up til around 4am talking in our beds after I'd talked on Skype with Matt (dirtyharry) and my mom.

Tuesday, we got on Waseda's campus, and on the train-ride there, I was inspired to challenge our team to step out in faith like never before. So when we had our team time at the beginning, I suggested that we all split up and go out sharing ALONE for the first time! It was such a scary idea, but everyone was so excited! The five of us had shared with each other our frustrations of feeling too shy to approach people, of allowing ourselves to just play wingman and mostly just watch their sharing partner talk to the students, of having a hard time transitioning from social conversation to spiritual. So we prayed for each other and went our separate ways. Two and a half hours later we met again to share our experiences. Turns out that every one of us had some really rough times and discouraging moments of not finding anyone to talk to and running into people who were very unwilling to talk. BUT, it also turned out that EVERYONE ONE OF US, Christina, Cherie, Russell, Kris and myself, ALL got to talk about our God with someone, and most of us even got to share the Gospel with at least one person! It was so encouraging! It was so difficult for all five of us, having no security blankets. But we laid it all into God's hands and He provided!

Today was a rough day of not much sharing with the students at Gakushuin (we went back there for the first time since last Tuesday), but we weren't too discouraged. We're doing more scouting of the land ;-)

God's definitely been stretching all of us in our time here, and it's been awesome! It hurts a lot when He grows us, especially when you see His holiness and realize how disgusting you are. But it's still been a powerful few days.