Week 4: Perseverence and Team Unity

forgive the lateness of this post- i had a very nice pattern of writing twice a week all of Project, but this week was pretty busy...i really hope i don't forget anything. time moves at a very odd pace when you're overseas, and my memory is bad enough without wonky time relativity.

this week the focus was on perseverence and team unity.

monday we had English lunch at Gakugei- lunch was a good time, and afterward we got to spend some time with sumire, nemo, yuka and heidi and talk just about life and how God's been working in our lives and sneak in some gospel so that was good, but afterward when jess and i went out to do some random evangelism, every girl we approached turned us down. we literally got turned down by about 9 girls. it was hard, but each time we got rejected we brushed it off and moved on to another cafeteria, but after the 3rd cafeteria and no girls wanting to talk to us, we were a bit discouraged. interestingly enough, we had prayed earlier for perseverence and humility...God has a funny way of answering prayers really quickly sometimes. needless to say, we both felt like we needed some time in prayer and reflection, so we went and sat on a bench near a cute little pond on campus and talked and prayed, and then it was time to go. talking to God always makes me feel better though, so by the time we met up with the boys i was much more encouraged. monday was also jess' birthday, so i'm sure it was hard for her to have a frustrating day of campus. but monday night we all surprised her with a cake and flowers so that was a lot of fun. amy and i had to go to 3 different places to find a cake big enough for 17 people though- it's so hard to find any big cakes in japan! everything is tiny. eventually found one though :)

tuesday we had prayer/worship morning, then went to Tsuda for English lunch. a new girl came which was exciting, and after lunch amy,traci and emily came to campus so that was way exciting because i'd never been on the same campus with amy or traci before. heather and i had been a bit disappointed b/c we were hoping a girl named Mai would come to lunch, but she didn't, but it was so cool because all 6 of us girls were standing near the front of the school when guess who runs up- Mai! it was really awesome. so emily and heather went to get coffee with her, traci and jess went to do some random evangelism and amy and i went to a cafeteria to do the same. we ended up asking a girl named Yurie if we could talk with her and then her friend Yoko came and sat down so we got to talk to both of them for about 40 minutes until we had to leave but we made plans to meet up again tomorrow so hopefully they will show up. tuesday for team training we were given cards and told to put them under categories of Always Valued, Often Valued, Sometimes Valued and Seldom Valued in regards to a team or group setting, and we were required to put at least 2 in every category. i discovered my Always Valued were accountablity, conflict resolution, shared goals, valuing differences and healthy working relationships. it was cool b/c we got to see how everyone operates and what they value so we can better serve them and their needs. tuesday night for Girls Night we went to mcdonald's to get some food and then had Bible study over Psalm 119.

wednesday room 305 cooked us a scrumptious breakfast of ham, english muffins, and eggs. we had English lunch at Hitotsubashi, and at first we were kind of nervous because we were trying to get people to come with us to lunch and weren't finding anyone. emily was at Hitotsubashi for the day, and she and i got rejected by so many girls we stopped counting. we had literally given up and were heading to lunch when we saw joe and asked if there were a lot people there yet and he said they were all Christians who had been there before and i was just like "oh no--emily we've got to do something!" so it kind of put a fire under us and we resumed trying to find a girl to invite. we saw 2 girls heading toward the cafeteria so we made a beeline for them to cut them off at the pass but they ran away so we were disappointed but then a girl walked up and i just went up to her and asked her if she spoke english and she did a bit and we invited her to lunch and she said yes and it was very exciting. turns out she'd been taking a class on Bible history and had lots of questions so emily immediately began a conversation with her on Bible stuff, and when we got to the lunch room Ngoc had come back and i was so excited! i was afraid i'd scared her off last week, especially since i hadn't heard from her in a week, but she was so much more receptive and we got to go through the whole gospel together and she kept saying things like "so then what happened? what happens next?" and it was so encouraging. i gave her a New Testament and encouraged her to write down any questions she had. i firmly believe God is working in her heart and i'm so excited to see what happens. after lunch we left Hitotsubashi to go to Gakugei b/c the boys had sports outreach time, and so emily and i went to the cafeteria and proceeded to have an incredibly tedious hour conversation with 2 girls who spoke very little english but we ended up talking a lot about spiritual things and their stances and what we believe and whatnot, but it was an exhausting conversation. when we got back from campus though we had a big bouquet of flowers and a decorated card that said "to the precious princesses of Rain Palace Room 408" on the front and on the inside was an invitation to a formal dinner on friday, signed "The Men." so that was exciting. then wednesday night for family night we went to shabu shabu for dinner (plates of really thin meat that you cook yourself in big pans of boiling sauce) and then to karaoke, which, not gonna lie, was pretty amazing.

thursday i switched campuses and went to Gaidai which was a lot of fun- it was a nice change of scenery, and since it is mostly a foreign studies school everyone we talked to knew a lot of english so that was a really blessed change. we had lunch w/ some girls emily had already made friends with and then yukiko (JCCC staff), emily and i set up Soularium and had some girls answer the questions as a survey, which was really cool to hear their answers but we didn't get to share the gospel- hopefully emily will be able to stay in contact with them, or pass them on to JCCC staff. thursday night we had practice for our Thriller dance performance that we will perform at our American Sayonara party on wednesday, then i went to dinner w/ gen, heather and jeremy, in which we all proceeded to eat way more than we should have.

friday was an interesting day. as a way to both help each other out and for each of us personally to act a bit differently than normal, we each got "incumberances" that we weren't allowed to tell anyone (though if people guessed they were allowed to help us out) and we had to stay in that state until we got back from campus at 4 pm. mine was based on Philippians 2:1-5 and my incumberance was that i was not allowed to speak unless spoken to (unless it hindered evangelism in which case it could but put on hold for a bit). it was really hard. but it also made me realize how much i talk just to talk instead of simply actively listening to people, or talking to people instead of talking to God. so that was cool. interestingly enough, jess had the exact same one, except she also could use big gestures or noises (she does that a lot)- i noticed pretty quickly that she was also much more quiet than usual but didn't confirm we had the same one until after English lunch when we needed to go out and share the gospel together. since neither of us could talk unless spoken to, we couldn't talk to each other, so we resorted to writing notes when needed and otherwise just going along with whatever the other person was doing. we did get to have a good conversation with 2 girls in spite of everything, and hopefully they will come to the American party. kylan ended up figuring out our incumberance by the time we met up to walk to the train station so he helped us out by directing lots of questions toward us which was nice. friday night was our creative date night with the boys and it was amazing- they all dressed up and escorted us with roses to Mitaka where they had cooked dinner for us and provided entertainment (including a poem and skits of "What Project Would Be Like Without Girls"). it was pretty awesome.

saturday we all spent the day at Disney Sea together- we left at 7:30 am and stayed at the park til closing at 10 pm. we were exhausted by the end of the day but it was so worth it. sunday morning i woke up not feeling well though so i spent most of the day resting until Sunday night meeting in Mitaka.

and now we are on our last week of project. i'm trying not to even think about the idea of going home, but it's hard. today was our last day at Gakugei and it made my heart very heavy, mostly because of the amazing girls i've met there who are so close to accepting Christ. but as my mother said, i've done all i can do- all i can do now is give it to God and let him work. which actually takes away all the pressure and responsibility, which is kind of awesome.

i'm really sad we only have a few more days on campus, but i'm also so excited to see how God is going to work this week. please pray for our spiritual protection, health and energy :) oh and sorry this post was ridiculously long.