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.

The right words

God knows how to put the words in my mouth, even when I don't know what to say! I have had some opportunities these past couple of weeks to share my testimony with some people and it was at these times that I worried most about how to verbalize my faith. But it was always after I was done witnessing to a friend here, that God reminded me that all I have to do is share what I know and He will do the rest. After I have done my part it is up to the Holy Spirit to work in the listeners heart. Only God can make a dead soul alive! Not me.
So this is one of the big encouragements to me. Not having to worry about my foolish words.
Please pray for the young man that I am spending time with now. He shows interest and understanding in the ideas of Jesus, but I am praying that he also sees the necessity of grace. We will call him Jim for the sake of a name.
I gave Jim one of the comic book Bibles last week which he read quickly. He told me that "some of the ideas are well thought out." Which I suppose means he has been thinking of them after the fact. This is encouraging for me to hear.
Thank you all for your prayers.
The weather has been a bit rainy here, but the locals say that it will only get rainier as the summer progresses. It's the wet season. Next week our team is going to be receiving some volunteers for the month. Two of the guys will be staying in my apartment with me. So that will be nice to have some company for June. We will be playing ultimate frisbee with students and trying to develop relationships with them that I will be able to continue even after the volunteer team leaves.
Pray for the team to be encouraged about missions while they stay here. Ask the Spirit to work in their hearts and break them for the Japanese people while they are here.

Random encounter #1

Last Friday I went to Starbucks here which is unusual because I never go to Starbucks. IN fact I have no idea why I even went there, I suddenly had an urge to go. After I had ordered some coffee and sat down I opened the book I was reading. But, not ten seconds later, a young man two tables away made direct eye contact with me and started to show me the book that he was reading. It was a bit odd, but felt totally natural. So then I introduced myself and he introduced himself. After a while we found that we were sitting at the same table and had been talking for almost an hour. His English was very good, having spent eight months in America and attending an English cram school. In fact this was why he was in Fukuoka. His cram school was only a few blocks away. We exchanged numbers and information and planned on meeting again. The young man has stated that he believes God exists for those who believe in Him. Whatever that means. I am to meet him again tonight so if you catch this sooner than later keep our meeting in your prayers. First and foremost I want to remain natural and real. I don't want to seem as if I have some ulterior motive when we meet because I don't. If being a friend is also sharing Jesus with a person than I will share Jesus with them.

Fifth Post

Sorry that it has been so long since I have posted on here. Not much has happened worth noting in the past couple of weeks.
Yesterday was very awesome. The entire time I have been here so far, it has been very difficult to make any friends among the university students. They are nice to me and helpful, but if there is a difference between nice and friendly, then Japanese students are not friendly.
It takes something to be included in any groups.
Since I have been here I have been taking lessons from my Japanese tutor. She is a very sweet middle aged woman and doesn't speak any English. She's given me many things including an old bicycle of her husbands. The bicycle has been very helpful and even fun to go around on. Yesterday, however, my teacher did something very incredible and I don't even think she realizes how incredible it was.
She took me on a school campus that she used to teach at so I could meet some girls that she knows. These girls in turn introduced me to some guys they knew. This was very awesome and an answer to prayer because being introduced by another Japanese person is exactly what I needed. Now they were interested in me as more than just some weird foreigner hanging around.
One of the students even raced back to the train station after I had left to get my phone's e-mail address so he could text me. That has never happened to me before at all! I've never experienced any students so eager to befriend me.
My teacher is very Shinto. Shinto being the Japanese religion. It just goes to show who God can use. The rest is up to Him now.

Thank you

I have been here a month so far. Thank you all very much for your prayers. They have meant a lot to me and I KNOW they have been effective. While I have not made any definite friendships yet God has granted me peace knowing I am in His will. I am going to live victoriously and try my best to not let the situations I'm confronted with, or the cultural differences tear down my faith. As we know, Christ already has the victory and as Romans 8:37 reminds us "...we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." I am going to claim this verse as I go out into this land filled with witchcraft, spirit worship, and despair.
This past weekend the largest festival in Japan was held here in Fukuoka city. Over two million people came. It was very exciting and maybe some of you have seen the pictures from it that I posted on Facebook. We handed out Bibles and tried to talk to people. I tried to make connections with the young working people we met. Some young people can't get into college so they go directly into the work force.
Thank you all again for your prayers. I'll keep you updated as God moves in Fukuoka!

ねこ

Yesterday I was walking on the campus across the street from my house. It wasn't very busy and in fact there were very few students there at the time because this is the start of "Golden Week", a Japanese holiday week where many offices and some teachers take off. It's a big shopping week too, so all of the stores in Tenjin, the main shopping district, were full of people.
There were a few students there on campus. Some were dressed up in business suits because they were there taking special exams. Others were there just to hang out because school has only been in session for three weeks and I guess they just don't know where else to go to meet up with people yet. (Though I suspect they know pretty well where the bars and drinking joints are because I've already been invited to go a couple of times.)
I was looking for a way to naturally start a conversation with some students. I really want my conversations to be REAL. I try to be as real as possible in that I don't have any ulterior motive for merely talking to someone. Of course I want to share Christ's love, but If I do that without actually showing love first then I would feel no better than some Mormon who is sharing out of some selfish desire. Christ shared his living water out of love. OF course this doesn't mean I am not here to tell about Christ! Usually one of the first things I tell people when I meet them is that I am here as a missionary and as a language student. Both of those are true.
SO back to yesterday. I was walking around praying for the campus and for the students. When I turned around a corner I saw this awesome cat laying in front of a doorway, simply basking in the sunlight. It was obvious that he was loving the sun. I really love cats and miss ours from back home so whenever I see one here, no matter how mangy and stray it may look I have the urge to go up and pet it. Usually they always run away from me in fear, probably because I look like a freaky foreigner. I cautiously walked up to this cat and it just lay there and squinted at me from the ground. It didn't move a centimeter. (Heh heh they use the metric system here.)
This may seem really crazy, but I've kind of gone crazy being here for three weeks, but I prayed "Dear God help this cat to stay still so that I can pet it." Ha ha! I really did pray that. So I leaned down and the cat still didn't move. So I started petting it, and the cat loved it, of course. It even started to play with me and wrestle with my hand, which is something that I love doing with cats. So I was pretty much on the ground playing with some stray cat in front of, what I later found out was, the law school.
A girl stepped outside to speak on the phone and saw me there. She and I started talking and I found out that she knows German and a little English. She got excited when she found out I was learning Japanese and called some more of her friends to come out and talk to me. A dude came outside and we introduced ourselves to each other. Then some other guys came walking up to go inside and we started talking. There was very little English spoken. It was really hard to carry a conversation on with them.
Then some Japanese dude who had just spent most of his life living in London came outside. He was excited to see a westerner and I was excited to see someone who spoke fluent English. I was kind of surprised to see that despite being Japanese he was going through some of the same cultural shock experiences I was. The law school had a shorter holiday than the rest of the campus for Golden Week, that is why all of these law students were still on campus. Altogether I had a good conversation with all of them, and look forward to maybe getting to know them and some more of their friends a bit better.
And I think back now and realize that if God hadn't of answered that simple prayer about letting me pet that cat then I probably wouldn't have met all of these people. Also the cat disappeared mysteriously and we all couldn't find it after we realized it was gone.

By the way, ねこis the hiragana for neko, which is Japanese for cat.