Good Day

To everyone who prayed... it worked!! Today was such an encouraging day to me, even though it was incredibly early and long...

We woke up at about 6:15 and were at the train by 7:15, got to Musashisakai by 7:45 and ICU High School by 8:30am. Whew! We then went in, shared testimonies with two different classrooms, had discussions, passed out flyers, ate lunch and hosted an english discussion group, planned for the next week, debriefed, took stats, small nap, food, games and now... BED!

Okay so, in my last post I mentioned that my campus team got banned from one of our main schools. I knew that God was doing something big, and was excited, but slightly overwhelmed as everything got thrown up into the air... Well... God did have something awesome planned.

Today, instead of going to ICU Univeristy, we were able to go to ICU High School, and share our testimonies and have AWESOME discussion times. We reached out to over 112 students today, each of them hearing multiple testimonies, and partaking in discussion groups we were able to lead. At one point, after sharing a part of my testimony that involved me explaining how I used to always feel the need to do things for people in order to make them like/love me... and how I had carried that over to God (to discover He loves me the way I am because of Christ) one of the sophomore guys in one of my groups opened up and said he felt the same way alot (this took a lot of bravery, he was the only guy in the group, had to have his feelings translated by one of his classmates, a cute girl, and hello... Japanese don't share their feelings... really... and did you in Highschool?!) I had to hold back tears. Some of the other girls in the same group asked really probing questions and worked really hard to make sure I was undestanding them so they could get the right answers... it was AMAZING!!

Honestly, I could do this the rest of my life... its going to be really hard to go home.

Also... on Monday (not sure if I blogged this or not...) I had an AWESOME discussion with a student on Gaidai University, and she and I are going out to lunch on Monday. She is really excited, and also really opened up to me. I told her part of my testimony about how I delt with not having a boyfriend, how God filled that place in my heart, and how I got to that point (through high school and daily prayer...) it was sweeeeet. She opened up to me about that portion of her life and like... wow. Its amazing to me how many different aspects to my testimony there are.... like, I never knew... but God is showing me that He had a plan for everything in my life that I have ever walked through/struggled through.

Its a good reminder, even as I wrestle through things now, to know that one day God will/could use them to bring people to himself. Its a worthy cause to suffer for.

Okay, pray I go home.. haha, just kidding. Seriously though... come to Japan... it will be so hard, so rewarding, so tiring and SO WORTH IT.

Love you all


ps. one of my contacts at ICU that I am no longer able to visit emailed me and said she still REALLY wanted to get together...

its going to suck leaving all these friendships behind... gah.