in Christ Alone

This past week has been a fun-filled purikura (photo sticker/da tou tie) adventure with our new Japanese friends! :P Unfortunately, they’re not all on Facebook, so I attempted to show you guys with a bad quality webcam photo XD

The purikura booths automatically make your eyes bigger, blacker, and shinier O____O.

Praise the Lord for such open, willing hearts! Sure, we’ve had our fair share of rejections, but many students are so willing to speak with us despite how broken their English is.♥ Some students have been very open and honest about their own lives and opinions of the gospel. We often find ourselves saying how cute the students are! :)  We love them all very much and are dreading the day we must leave them! >.< We only have three more days on campus! T___T We’ll be having a Good-bye party on Saturday. Hopefully, many of our new friends will be able to make it and hang out with us!!!

Being here on summer project has made me learn so much about myself. It’s exciting and fun and scary and painful all at once! Feel free to ask me for more detail about that. Too much to write in my blog. :P I’m glad that God is revealing and teaching me so much here. I pray that He continues to! 

Tomorrow, I will be staying with Joanne with a host family for one night! :D The host family consists of a mom, dad, a 5 year old girl, and a 2 year old boy. Aimee, Caren, Andrew, Jeremy, Danny, and Tommy will also be staying with a host family. We’re all excited to experience a little bit of Japanese daily life and play with kids! I pray that we’ll be a blessing to the family!

Tomorrow night is Women’s Night~ We are going through the Cru book called, Fantasy: An Insatiable Desire for a Satisfying Love. It’s pretty awesome so far! Betty Blake Churchill, Rick James, and many other authors of the articles are so wise and hilarious. Each article is so beautifully written and really seeks to help women make God first. Girls, you should really check it out! http://www.campuscrusade.com/catalog/Fantasy-An-Insatiable-Desire-for-a-Satisfying-Love.html

Guys, you could check out the men’s version! I personally haven’t read it (of course), but our guy team members are reading it for their men’s time!
http://www.campuscrusade.com/catalog/Flesh-Men-s-Edition.html 

Seriously, the more I read it…the more I want to suggest others to read it! It’s an easy read despite the heavy topic. Anyways, I digress. I should update you guys on what’s going on! 

On Monday, Aimee and I weren’t able to meet Yuka and Ayaka again, but we believe God is still in control. He is still watching over them. We do still pray that we may see them again before we leave…if that’s not in His will, then that’s okay too! Though we weren’t able to follow-up with them, Aimee and I were able to meet another two girls, Shiori and Ayako! They were super nice and willing to talk to us in English, despite lacking stellar English-speaking ability. :) They were super cute! We really were able to connect with them, and we’ll be meeting with them again on Thursday! Ah, before we met Ayako and Shirori, Ariel and Andrew (our team members) brought us two cups of pudding! As they were handing it to us, they said they wanted to encourage us and that we have been enduring in faith. Aimee and I were so touched! Neither of us had a camera, so we drew a picture instead! Haha! What wonderful brothers in Christ!
 

Today, I got an opportunity to share with Caren and Danielle. It was a totally different experience than what I had been experiencing thus far. We initiated conversation with two girls and had a good time talking to them. They were also very willing to talk in English despite their actual ability. :) Then…more and more of their friends began to come, very happy and surprised. Within a few minutes, we were surrounded by roughly around 20 students! One really big friend group! They were all so sweet and excited to speak English with us. They even invited to speak to them again tomorrow! Danielle really enjoyed the high-energy, large group, while I was a little overwhelmed (being the introvert that I am). @___@ All my energy got sucked up keeping up with the high-energy conversations, but I still look forward to meeting with them again tomorrow! Plus, our team planned to bring games to lunch to connect with students more! :) Still, glad to know how I function and to confirm that I am indeed an introvert. x__x
 

^ Most of their names and da tou tie (photo stickers)! 

Also, Danny, Tommy, and I had enjoyed a nice evening with the Lord (individually) at a coffee shop called Dotour! :) I’m glad that Vinnie and Kimberly did incorporate a whole evening for us to just spend time with God. It definitely refreshes us after pouring out to students on campus! 

Prayer requests:

• That God would prepare Ayako and Shiori’s hearts for Aimee and I to share our testimonies and hopefully the gospel. Also, pray for Aimee and my discernment to know if they’re ready to hear the gospel or not.
• Our team member’s health. Joanne is feeling a bit under the weather, and Jeremy is sick. Also, many of us don’t feel well-rested.
• Though sharing the gospel to a huge group of friends may be hard, please pray that God would provide us with open doors to share the gospel with some of them.

Joanne: http://japanjoanne.tumblr.com/

Jeremy: http://kingdomscause.blogspot.jp/

Aimee: http://aimeetokyo.blogspot.jp/

Andrew: http://andrewsadventuresabroad.wordpress.com/

Tommy & Danny http://jesuslovesjapan.wordpress.com/

Check out my team members’ blogs! Please, pray for them! :)

On Monday, we visited the campus for the first time. I didn’t get an opportunity to meet with any students, but I explored the campus for hotspots with some team members. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to meet anybodyy :( BUTTTT, my team members did meet two groups of people that they are working on caring for. :DD

On Tuesday, we visited a high school VERRYYY far away from our apartment, but it was worth it! Though we didn’t get to spend that much time with the students, we all definitely want to go again! Aimee, Joanne, Caren, Danny, Ariel, Vinnie, and Danielle were able to share their life stories with some students! :) 

Wednesday was our second day on campus, but my first day talking with the students. I went with Andrew and Ariel to some clubs and students near the vending machine. We had a pretty good (but shallow) conversation with a group of 6 guys. Andrew was able to connect with a student in the soccer club! ^^ Then, we visited a competitive ballroom dancing club. The students were so nice! They invited us to play Smash Brothers with them XD and to their practice day. Hopefully, Aimee and I will be able to visit. Thanks to Ariel who really helped push me into having more courage and initiate conversations!

Today was the first day I got to exchange contact information with Japanese students! :D It was so much fun sharing with my team member, Aimee, today. She is definitely God’s provision for me, just as each member is. Our day first started out rocky. We got food and sat down in the cafeteria, in hopes that some students would sit next to us. That didn’t work out so well, so we ended up exploring the building…That also didn’t work out well for us. I was ready to leave the building and try another location, but Aimee suggested we try the lunch room I passed up earlier. So, we did…and met Ayaka and Yuka! Two super cute and sweet girls♥ Our conversation seemed to go pretty well :) We hope to meet up with them again to go shopping together! 

//PTLs:

• Joanne got her phone back! Japanese people are so honest! >O<
• Students are so friendly to us :D and willing to listen to our testimonies
• Our team is walking in unity and love pretty well! ♥

 Prayer Requests:http://rosannainjapan.tumblr.com/prayerrequests

Yay! Our church starts in the afternoon! :P But I keep waking up around 4 - 6 AM anyways. -.- Anywaysss, an update of what Japan has been like for us so far! 
Orientation and training has been kind of intense. On Thursday - Saturday, we work on writing/editing our testimonies and other stuff from 9 AM - 5 PM (with a nice lunch break from 12 - 1 PM!). The training has proved to be pretty difficult for all of us. We all had to really open up the door to our hearts to write this testimony. To be honest, our training staff seemed pretty intimidating at first, but I really appreciate everything that he has done for us. I’ve realized so much more about myself and where God’s hand was in my life. I’m really glad that our training staff pushed us to make our testimonies the best we could. 
Also, we were able to look around Shinjuku last night. At first, we were all mesmerized by the size of the city, the masses of people, and the bright lights everywhere. We all felt it hitting us, “We’re in Tokyo.” But, we got a closer look at Shinjuku. The Red Light district. We didn’t actually go into the district, but Ariel explained a little about it to us. Then, one of our team members, Aimee, felt deja vu near the Red Light district. She had a bad dream on that very street, so we decided to pray on the spot. It was such a good reminder that we’re not on vacation. We’re here to be fishers of men. We’re here to plant seeds in the hearts of the lost. Though the city was so bright with all its flashing billboards, the city began to seem so dark. 

Please join us in praying for the lost and hopeless. Pray that our eyes will see what God sees and our hearts break for what breaks God’s heart. Pray for our boldness and courage to speak to the people God leads us to. Thanks again, everybody. Your prayers are much appreciated.

Forgive me, friends. Orientation is heavily packed of information and training. @___@ I shall update in a couple of days when things settle down, and my jet lag is gone (which hopefully will be tomorrow morning). Thank you for all your prayers! 

Ahhhhh! The love for my team is growing steadily day by day! We have already created inside jokes and just really enjoying each other’s company. :) 

I’m so glad I was able to come to briefing. The coaches and leaders are so wise and have taught me many things within such a short period of time! Just a few things that stuck out to me that are good for me to keep in mind as I leave for Japan on Tuesday:

• We want to experience the gospel while bringing the gospel! 
• My team needs me, not the perfect me, but the me in process with the Lord. I need to give my full voice.

Also, my team’s vision is “to trust Christ and to depend on the Holy Spirit, to walk in unity and love, to endure in faith, and to bless the JCCC staff.” 

AHHH Everything is making me more excited for Japan!

First of all, I should probably let you guys know:

• Though I don’t have access to a phone, I have access to the internet! So, feel free to send me an e-mail if you would like to contact me or leave lovely words of encouragements♥. I probably won’t be able to check them everyday, but I will reply as soon as I have time. :)
• No e-mail updates! I will just be posting on this blog~ 
• I have raised 55.5%. That’s $3,207! I definitely was able to see God work in ways I didn’t expect through raising all this support. Thank you guys!

 
Whooo! I arrived in Orange County safely for briefing~ So far, so good! :) I loved meeting all the members of my team! Can’t wait to see how God will bring each of us closer to Him and each other. Today, I had a chance to bond with some of the girls on my team through a group nap in the afternoon. :P We shall be having another one tomorrow night! Also, it was nice hearing the the goals, hopes, and dreams each of my team members have for this project. Some of the ones that came up the most was:

• to deepen our personal relationship with God
• sharing the gospel and seeing the fruit of our work
• develop really close ties with each of the team members so that we can love each other as brothers and sisters in Christ

Please, pray that my team will really be able to see these goals and hopes play out by the end of our project!! 
I’m so excited to see how God will work in Japan!!  

 My team!