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 :)