Initiate by actions...

I have a lot of friends here Japan. I have many opportunities to share the Gospel with them too. I thank God that i am not hindered at all from doing this here.
However one thing that keeps getting in the way of this is language. Now I am not saying that since I cannot speak Japanese I am unable to share with them. On the contrary, I am able to share in more ways than merely verbally. However many of my friends here are only interested in having an American friend or from practicing their own limited English skills with me.
Because their English is also limited it makes having serious deep conversations about God, death, the purpose for our existence, kind of moot.
You can imagine some of the difficulties!
But God always gives me the opportunity to act like a Christian whether or not I can express verbally that I am a Christian. So I have been praying that others my see Christ's love through my actions as well as through my words.

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!

One of my pals

Ippei has asked many questions about what I believe about God. I have been completely honest with him about why I am here, even going so far as calling myself missionary. He is the first person I have just flat out told up front. So far he hasn't stopped doing anything with me and still remains interested. I think this might have something to do with the fact that he seems bored with life. To him his life is pretty repetitive, and I would go so far as to call it mundane. He works at a retail store long hours, where all he does is "just stand around" (his words). If he sends me an e-mail that says "I am just standing around" I know this means that he is at work. He is a nice, easy-going guy. Speaks great english, and is creative. He has two passions (and a girlfriend that he sees on occasion); skateboarding, and painting. He is a pretty decent artist and enjoys creating different designs. I have tried to encourage him to do something with his artistic abilities. I think he appreciates my encouragement. Please pray that Ippei continues to befriend me. Pray that I can share Christ with him in a way that will make life more exciting in ways that he could never have previously imagined. Like many other young Japanese people, Ippei is searching for God, they just don't know where to find Him.

Another message that we should listen to.

Michael Oh and his family are missionaries in Japan. He's a very passionate believer and someone whom I admire. This is a link to his blog-

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ohfamily/

This is a message that I hope that everyone in my family listens to and hopefully anyone else who reads my blog. He gave this message at a pastor's conference in February of this year.

Message by Pastor Oh

Granted it is a long message, but maybe you could just listen to it in place of your quite time, or even listen to it in parts.

Missions in Japan

First of all I'd like to apologize for not having posted anything on here in almost a month. It's been an incredibly difficult month, to be honest. Satan has been attacking my spirit. But I take comfort knowing that Christ is the victor ultimately despite my weak character.
Secondly I would encourage everyone to listen to this sermon by John Piper. Here is the link-

Message by Pastor Piper


I may not die doing missions here in Japan, but sometimes I wonder if it will take people dying for here for Christ's name to spread. Piper was right. Satan did win a big battle here in Japan all those years ago, however that was just a tiny battle compared to the eternal victory Christ already has. It makes me sad to think about the many lost people here. The only thing I can do for them is share what I know and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. A person's salvation does not rest on my shoulders, but relies on God's grace.

I am having some guys over on Tuesday night for dinner. They all want to see this huge stinkin' apartment that the IMB got for me. I went into one of their apartment's the other day and I have to admit that I feel rather lame in this huge place. His apartment was the size of two of my closets. I can tell that we're going to have a lot of fun on Tuesday, so please pray that I have a spirit of Joy and compassion that is contegeous, and also that my guests wonder what it is that I have and desire it too (besides the huge apartment).

Earthquakes and Ghosts

Many of you saw my facebook post about the earthquake. I was laying in bed and at one twenty in the morning the building started to shake and there was a low rumbling noise. I thought at first that this was merely the train yard next to my apartment building, which makes constant noise all night long, but then I began to think, "The train yard has never shaken my bed before." It steadily got more and more intense and my bed shook across the room. Needless to say I suddenly realized that it was an earthquake. I ran outside of the apartment to see what the other people would say. However I soon realized that no one else was leaving their apartments.
The only indication that we had an earthquake was a little message scrolling across the bottom of the television screen. No special news report or anything. The next day my friend from Taiwan told me "Welcome to the islands. Last week my family and I drank tea and watched television during and earthquake and no one batted an eye."
The night of the 'minor' earthquake though I lay awake wondering how I would have reacted if it had been "the big one". I had to give my life to God again that night after having thought I had already done this! I was afraid to be sure.
Also last week I met with this awesome kid, whom we'll call Will. We had lunch and did some language exchange. He is an English language major at his school. I told him that I respected the challenge of learning a new language because I was going through the same thing. He knows far better English than I do Japanese though.
Near the end of our lunch time we started talking about things that we were interested in. He said that he was interested in Ghosts and then asked me if I beleived in ghosts. I told him that I believe in ghosts whole-heartedly and then told him that I have a lot of ghost stories! For one thing we as Christians worship the Holy Ghost! So I told Will that since I had a meeting that afternoon I wouldn't be able to tell him all of the ghost stories and we would have to wait until this week. So all week long he has been sending me texts reminding me that we are meeting again today and are going to share ghost stories. So please pray that the Lord speaks through me with my meeting.

Rambling

So these past three weeks have been pretty busy. But busy is good. I haven't had time to think about much else. We have been meeting new university students and making new friends. Of course this only makes me wonder more about all of the lost people in Japan. The more friends I make the more I long to see them come to Christ. Can you imagine your friends burning forever in Hell? Sometimes these are the nightmares that race through my mind. They don't even know what's in store for them after they die. A lot of people here are only concerned with what is happening in the moment and very few think too far ahead into the future. One of the questions that I like to ask them is what do they want to be doing in the next ten years. Of course this even gets me thinking.
The weather has been hot here. And getting hotter. When the volunteer team was here we went to many places that I had not visited yet. We climbed part way up a mountain too. That was really awesome. Sometime I'd like to get back there and finish climbing it.
I've been helping all of my friends study English. At this point I know that this is the main draw to any kind of friendship with me, but if I can use that to glorify God then I don't mind at all. All I can do is keep praying for them and hope that somehow their eyes are opened up to the truths of Christ and the need for grace.
Sometimes it's overwhelming looking at hundreds of people everyday that are going to go to hell. The amount of lostness is great. The harvest is plenty but the workers are few, and that is not any more apparent than here in Fukuoka.
I have surprised myself in the past few weeks with language. God has blessed me often with understanding and the right words in Japanese in a way that could only be from Him. For example I tried to explain the concept of House Church to a friend, and I basically was able to do it completely in broken Japanese. ha ha. It probably made no sense to him grammatically but he still understood what I was trying to tell him.
So this post is kind of just rambling. However I felt it was necessary to write something because it has been so long since my last post. My next one should be more clear. Thank you all for your prayers. It's been a hard weekend and a lot has been on my mind.