Out of the mire...

Ok. First of all I owe many people an apology. I HAVE NOT POSTED IN ALMOST FOUR MONTHS!! Please forgive me.
I have to be honest and say that I had found myself in a spiritual mire so to speak. I was depressed about many things, but recently Christ has been lifting me back to where He wants me to be. Praise God! The Lord has been answering my questions, and although they are not always what I want to hear, I am having to learn more about trusting Him.

Perhaps I`ll share more about that later though...

IN the meantime- IT IS CHRISTMAS HERE!!! Actually Christmas started here at the beginning of November. SO it has been Christmas here for over a month already. What do I mean by that? Well every department store and convenient store and any kind of store had started decorating for Christmas at the start of November. Since the Japanese don`t celebrate Thanksgiving (yet) I guess they just start celebrating the next big holiday.
The Japanese aren`t afraid to say `Merry Christmas` in public advertisements either! SO much more bold than Americans in that respect.
Well even though I believe that Christians should celebrate Christmas everyday, now is a great time of year to share about Christ with my friends and even strangers.
My team ordered about a thousand Christmas CDs. The CDs have music in Japanese and even testimonies about Christ. It is a good witnessing tool. I have given some of them to my friends and they responded positively to the music. (No decisions for Christ yet. But that is what we are praying for.)

I have been doing language exchange with my Pals Wataru and Yuta. Separately, not together. Both of them always have something interesting to say about God. During our language exchange I always give them `listening tests` where I tell them a Bible story and then I ask them questions about what they heard.
Yesterday Yuta pointed something out to me. He said, `Danny, since God loves us we should love God.` Wow. I was really impressed that he came to that decision on his own. IT surprised me. Everyone keep praying for Yuta and Wataru. Both are young kids at the universities here.

Also my computer finally blew up. ... well not really `blew up` like an american movie or anything. But the hard drive just gave out and now it won`t stay turned on. SO my supervisor graciously offered to let me use his old, spare, computer. It is a japanese computer so I am having to work around it`s different keyboard, but it`s better than nothing! I thank God for the blessing of a team that looks out for each other.
I`ll keep posting right up to Christmas.
Please pray for the Christmas CDs we are handing out. People may actually listen to them!