Day 26

Ever have those times when you look at the difference between dates on your blog updates and wonder how on Earth to tell friends about all the in-between? I'm there right about now..

Last week, like I mentioned, was Challenge Week. It ended in a party Student Impact hosts fairly regularly called "Discover Friends!" Thankfully, the staff hosted the event--they cooked a great dinner, planned out what they wanted, prepped students to translate between English and Japanese. But! Part of the night they asked us to help organize. Three of our students (Kyle from Central Michigan, Josh from USC, and Kimi from USC) who make up our Outreach Team planned an icebreaker for the entire group, challenged one of our girls, Jess from Central Michigan, to tell her story of deciding to follow Christ, and they helped us in leading Soularium discussion groups.

(Soularium is a tool used in evangelism to start spiritual conversations, and it's basically a collection of photographs with a few prompts to answer. Annnd in case you're curious, http://mysoularium.com has more information on it.)

Our team generally gave very positive feedback on their groups, and my group in particular was a huge blessing. One of the students in our group is this amazing girl named Mary who, though she isn't a Christian, keeps talking about it as if it's just on the verge of happening. She would give answers like, "Well, when I become a Christian, I know it will be like this, because God loves us and wants to hold us close," and crazy things like that that you would never expect. In between our group members answering, I whispered to her and told her our stories of deciding to learn more about God sounded really similar and I wanted to hear hers.. so after Soularium, we talked for a while and were able to exchange information so that hopefully the two of us can meet sometime before the team leaves Tokyo. Please be praying for her! It's so heartwarming to see God so obviously in process... And I would love to speak words of truth and empathy into her life.

I've also been able to meet up with two of my girls!! I call them my girls, but I suppose I can't really claim them :) Their names are Saori and Mikako, and they are two precious and wonderful Japanese girls, both studying at Rikkyo University here in Tokyo. I actually met them in 2008 when they came to America with Student Impact for a homestay program, and they stayed in ADX, with my roommate techo and me. Anyway, we've been in contact and were able to go have lunch last week, and will maybe be able to next week as well! They took me out for noodles in Ikebukuro, which is apparently a very popular place for noodles. We had a kind called skimen..? Noodles that you dip into a cold soup and slurp..... I'm working on my skill level. Point being, praise God for my being able to meet with them again--this is the fourth or fifth time, and I love when we're able to be together. I know they know what I'm about, but I tend to be timid about bluntly talking about God with them because they're good friends (why does that always seem to happen? As if the risk is greater eternally..), so please be praying for me to make myself available to be used by God there, rather than stepping out in fear.

Saori, Mikako, and me in front of Tommy back home at 'SC!

Oh, there's so much more!! And I'm not going a bit in chronological order.. But here are some of the highlights from the past ten days of no updates: 

- A little collection of us had an adventure last Thursday night to Odaiba and the famous Rainbow Bridge. It was pretty spectacular--mostly because of the company and because there was a BEACH. A beach. So good.

- God completely provided a girl at Hitotsubashi University last week for me to approach on my own. It was really sweet to switch to missions ministry mode rather than Associate Project Director mode for a half hour, and we are meeting tomorrow for a quick lunch between her class and commute over to Gaidai! :)

- Ministry at Tsuda, the all women's university that we're visiting, has been so refreshing. Please pray for Mai, one of the girls who has been so great to follow up with! We met last Tuesday, she came out to the Discover Friends party and was in my group last Friday, and God placed us directly in front of one another this week. She's also coming to California for a month beginning in August, so there's opportunity for follow-up at home.

- This week is Team Unity week and I LOVE it. Call it cheesy, call it whatever, but it's all kinds of wonderful :)

- There was a beautiful thunderstorm during men's and women's times this week. We (the girls) went through Psalm 119 together and discussed it with the sliding glass doors of our balcony open, listening to the rain and thunder and watching the lightning. Praise the Lord for that kind of glory!

- Four of us went to Tokyo Disneyland Saturday!! ...so much I could say, but it was great.

- Epic family nights these past two weeks: last week was game night, with HOURS of Mafia. So many great moments, and the room was filled with laughter anytime we weren't "asleep" and being picked off one by one. This week (last night), we went to sukiyaki and karaoke. Win. Sukiyaki is a great style of food here where each table has a pan of boiling sauce that you continually refill, and you cook your food yourself. Meat and veggies abound. It's pretty yum. And karaoke with characters like our team has is always great--although Mmmbop wasn't the same without Christina Carey by my side..! <3>

- MOM SENT COOKIES!!! Wonderful. There are no ovens in our apartments.. Much less chocolate chip cookies on a regular basis! Thank you, mom :)

- Old friends have been SO good to talk to. Gen and I are having coffee tomorrow with Lisi, one of our dear friends from back home who came to STINT in Tokyo this past year! Today, we were able to Skype with Paul and Trina Litwin, our briefing coaches, but also two of the Cru staff on USC's campus. AND I've been having what we've been calling virtual discipleship time with my girls back in LA, which has made me so incredibly thankful for the accessibility of the internet in Tokyo.. and excited to be home when we get there :)

Ha. Haha. Hahaha. In the park near Rain Palace, post-Disneyland, pre-late night snacking.

If it wasn't noticeable in the whole "highlights" section, late nights the past week have been happening a lot. I think it's partially that project is winding down and we're trying to cram as much "family" time in as possible. Ha. Haha. Hahaha. And Euchre. And Nertz. And cooking. And writing and reading. And dancing. It's been pretty wonderful, and it feels like debriefing is sneaking up on us! Thank you so much for all your prayers and support! We appreciate them SO much. And I personally appreciate all the patience with me and my updating! :)

With LOADS of love and joy,

hb

Day 16

Friends! Day 16 is officially over in Japan!

This week is a week of challenges, and all seventeen of us on Tokyo A team have three goals for ourselves:

- First, our ministry goal, and the number of gospel conversations we want to have this week.

- Second, a personal goal, which is basically a faith goal for ourselves this week. An extra hour of prayer per day, doing an inductive study of a book of the Bible, learning to pray continually.. whatever the case may be.

- Third, is something dubbed by the wonderful Greg Triplett (our Cru Campus Director at USC, and 2007 Tokyo A Project Director) as "exceedingly more." Exceedingly more is the goal that we can do little to nothing about, and just have to ask God that we would be able to see it.

And praise God, one of the guys on the team, Andrew (a friend from USC), already had his exceedingly more answered! Only six hours of campus time after praying through the goals for the week... God is so good! :) Hopefully Andrew will talk a little more about it in his blog (linked at the right, ooh, ahh), and I don't know the whole story, but: Apparently God had really imprinted a certain Japanese student on his heart, a guy he really wanted to meet up with again but had been unable to get in touch with, so he asked God that He would set it up. And voila! Today on the Gakugei campus, Andrew ran into the guy and was able to talk with him again! The student had tried to email him back and had even been researching USC in order to know more about him for the next time they met! How encouraging is that? I love it.

Sitting next to Andrew, getting to be part of Team One's English lunch at Hitotsubashi last week.

(Me, Andrew, Jeremy, Kimi, and a Hitotsubashi University student)

Anyway, it's been a great day. I was able to explore a new campus (Gaidai: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) and meet individually with our three Team Two girls (part of my three goals for this week). They each have such encouraging hearts. Today was one of those days where there was no room for doubt to creep in as to why I'm here, doing what I'm doing.. And even more than that, why I'll be where I'll be next year, doing what I'll be doing as a campus intern with Cru at USC.

Please be praying for us during this week of goals, for the students especially, but for Gen and me as well, that we would all trust the Lord with our goals and seek out our rest and strength in His shadow. And even for Friday, when we have a "Discover Friends!" party, a Student Impact outreach which we get to participate in. Details to come!

But for now, it's time for bed. I hope you all have blessed Mondays back at home! If you're in need of encouragement, feel free to open up Zephaniah 3. Especially verse 17. Seems to be coming up a lot lately :)

Day 15 (Again)

So as a late night clarifying point: If you wondered at all what was up with the title of the blog..

A stream (eh, eh?) that runs along the walls of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, which we visited last Saturday.

The passage that we're focusing in on this summer is in Jeremiah 17:7-8. It says, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit."

We've been studying it portion by portion, and started project with surrender. We prayed through and took several active steps in trusting this project and ourselves in the Lord's hands. (Doesn't seem that hard, but hey, we're human. :))

This past week focused on intimacy of the Lord, and what it looks like to be the trees who send out their roots by the stream. As I was looking through some of my favorite parts of the Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis, I came across this conversation which takes place in The Silver Chair. It's between Aslan the Great Lion and Jill, a young girl who is on her first adventures outside day-to-day life in London.

“If you're thirsty, you may drink.”

They were the first words she had heard since Scrubb had spoken to her on the edge of the cliff. For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink,” and of course she remembered what Scrubb had said about animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time, and the voice was not like a man's. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.

“I'm dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the Lion.

“May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to - do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.

"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.

"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream

then."

"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

It makes me tear up just reading it again now. It's a beautiful picture of just what Jesus asks of us: even when it's terrifying, even when it makes no sense, to step forward and drink. It sounds beautiful, it looks beautiful, and the promise of that stream can drive us nearly crazy when we're without it... Within it, there are no apologies, we are his, but it is good and it is life. And there is no other stream.

This week we'll be focusing on the next part of the Jeremiah 17 passage: "...and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green." If you think of us, please be praying for refreshment and courage in the days on campus to come!

Tokyo A 2009 Team! Back Row: Traci, Emily, Jess, me, Kimi, and Amy. Middle Row: Tim, Sammy, Matt, Gen, Josh, Jack, Kyle, Andrew, and Jeremy. Front Row: Kylan and Joe.

Day 15

It's Sunday morning, the start of our third week of project. When we (Gen Nakamura: my Project Director/co-intern at USC next year/one of my best friends and I) planned the project schedule, we set aside Sunday as restful regrouping time, with blogging time, leadership meetings, church, and a team meeting to end the night. I decided to head out of the apartment this morning for blogging and quiet time, so I'm sitting at my favorite little coffee shop maybe in the world.

It's called Precious Coffee Moments, and it really is this precious little corner entrance across from the south exit of Koenji Station. When I was here on project two years ago, my sweet friend Christina was the one to introduce me, and it might have been here that my tastebuds started being okay with coffee! :)

Right now they're having summer specials on coconut flavored drinks, so my staple (hands down) is the iced coconut milk coffee, which is served in a little bronze mug that condenses all over everything. There's swing music lilting over the whole place (even though I have Bethany Dillon playing in my headphones) and it has an unusual (for Tokyo) interior with wooden tables and modern furniture. It's angular but warm with windows, one open-faced pink brick wall, cream-colored and wood paneled walls everywhere else, and black and white photography on the back walls of the smoking section. And the staff might be just about the cutest coffee house staff ever--though only one woman seems familiar enough to me to maybe have worked here two years ago.

(I told two of the girls I meet with regularly for discipleship at 'SC that I would describe it for them so we could pretend to have dtime here as we're writing back and forth :), but I figured it would be fun enough to introduce it to everyone else back home too!)

Yesterday was beautiful, though maybe that's not the best word to describe how it started out. Most of the team decided to forgo sleeping in for a 4 AM wake up call to visit Tsukiji, the largest fish market in the world. It was about an hour commute on the train, and raining anytime we were in open air. But once you set foot in the market, you become very aware of just how much a tourist you are. Workers drive motorized carts (that smell and sound a little bit like the cars at Disneyland's Autopia) faster than you expect (and honestly, a little more directly at you than you expect) and the small stalls of live, frozen, and/or bloodied fish are offset by even smaller walkways for buyers and sellers to negotiate space and prices.

One of the workers taking a break from prepping fish at Tsukiji.

So we wandered for a little bit before coming back to Koenji for breakfast and a nap, only to be followed by a day at the park! :) Inokashira Park is a huge park right off the Kichijoji stop on our train route, and it's basically THE place to take babies and dogs. Yes, please. It's like an attack of cute everywhere you walk. So we wandered for a bit and played for a bit--volleyball, frisbee, and soccer... so good for my heart :)

Fountains on the pond at Inokashira Park (courtesy of Miss Christina Carey :)).

Anyway. I know none of that gives you any idea about our ministry here, but maybe there'll be an update on that tomorrow? :) We've had so many success stories of different students being bold and taking steps of faith, and even a guy on one of our campuses who, through a conversation with one of our students and a YMCA staff, decided last week to start a relationship with Jesus! It can be hard sometimes to see the victories (especially in moments of disappointment or confusion, of which there have been a fair share), but there have been so many, and it's only the start of our third week on campuses! Praise God for how good He is and how He is doing--so much more than we'll necessarily be able to see this side of heaven. He is good.

Love you, friends :) Thank you for your support and encouragement so far. I wish you could all be here with us, if even for a day. 

Day 12

Hi, friends!

It's sort of a strange time to be starting a blog--almost two weeks into summer project--but so many things started happening that I figured it would be a good start to keeping track of them all! :)

This summer is my third time in Tokyo: the second time for summer project, but the first time leading. It was wonderful to be challenged to lead, but it was a strange period to walk through, preparing for it during my last semester in college. But! God is faithful, and I'm here now, being stretched in my faith and being grown in ways I hadn't ever expected! And one of the main stories that spurred me on in starting to blog actually happened the other night..

Tuesday, we had had a great women's time, complete with bonding and a casual study of 2 Corinthians 10:3-6. Even though it was a wonderful time with the girls, at around 11:30 that night I walked out of our apartment feeling heavy and tired. Some other things had come up as the night had gone on and I felt completely overwhelmed and unequipped, and I sat down on the front porch of our apartments in Koenji to cry and pray.

As it was happening, I was trying to cling to what we had just talked about during women's time--truth, and what it meant to take every thought captive--so I prayed through scripture. In Joshua, God says he'll never leave or forsake him; he says that Joshua should be brave and courageous. In Ephesians, it talks about being kind and tenderhearted toward one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ forgave us. 1 John 4:19 is all about our ability to love being rooted only in his first loving us. In the Psalms, God is acknowledged as being more precious than gold or silver.. And I prayed for help to believe, for faith.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a Japanese girl around my age biked by, stopped about 10 feet past me, turned and asked me in very concerned, somewhat broken English, "Are you okay??"

(Let me say here and now that in all the weeks I've spent in Tokyo, I don't think this has ever happened to me. People in Tokyo have a tendency to walk right by without noticing you exist. Not to mention that moments before I had mentioned to God how crazy it was for so many people to pass by me crying without any acknowledgment.. ah, divine senses of humor :))

I told her she was so sweet to ask, but not to worry, that I was fine.. And we had a few back and forths before she finally sat down to hug me and find out more about what was wrong. I explained partially that one of my friends was really sick and I wasn't sure how to take care of her, and we talked in a labored way for a few moments about different hard things going on in our lives before she asked me what I was doing in Tokyo. I started in, saying my friends and I were part of a team from America who came to talk with Japanese college students about God, and ask them what they thought. Right as I told her we were Christians, she looked at me with big, brown eyes and said, "I am a Christian, too!"

(....I know, right?)

Long story short(ened), over the next half hour, we shared how we decided to start a relationship with Christ, sang Amazing Grace on the porch steps, called her mom (an English teacher who was amazingly still awake at midnight), exchanged contact information, and decided to get coffee together soon. She was a complete and miraculous answer to prayer and a full refreshment to my spirit--something to celebrate and praise God for! His mercies are new every morning--even at the very start of morning, say 12:01 AM..? :) Her name is Miki; please be praying for and thanking God for her.

The rest of that 24 hours continued to be an adventure, but I'll save some of those stories for later. Suffice it to say, it's only been a week and a half, but it's been an intense, revealing, and beautiful week and a half. Thank you for your prayers so far, and please continue to pray for us--for health, rest, protection, truth--we need as much support as we can get!

(Japanese) Italian food at women's time. Thank goodness for a year of Italian, so I can translate translations! These are the women of Tokyo A 2009 (from left to right): me, Kimi Brown, Traci Lawrimore, Emily Niemond, Jess Jury, and Amy Ledin. They're pretty fantastic. To put it mildly. Annnd this picture is stolen from Kimi's collection :)

And courage, dear heart!, as Aslan would say :)