TWO MONTH ANNIVERSARY

Oh hey, December. where the heck did you come from? have i really been in Japan two whole months???

seriously, this is crazy. it's hard to believe i may only have 7 months left in this country; which, don't get me wrong, is quite a long time, but is definitely shorter than it seems.

AWESOME MINISTRY MOMENTS OF NOVEMBER:
- Kanae accepting Christ and her friend Yui wanting to do Bible study with us
- Sehee wanting to meet up every week to study the Bible and learn how to share the Gospel with her friends
- Ngoc wanting to meet up and getting to reconnect with her after 2 years, being able to share the Gospel with her and talking about deep issues and her wanting to start coming to English Lunch every Tuesday at Hitotsubashi
- at least 1-2 people hearing the Gospel every day
- going to the homeless church in Yoyogi Park, getting to talk to 3 homeless women and seeing one of them give the pastor a yennie

REFLECTIONS ON JAPANESE CULTURE:
Things I Love but Also Don't...
1. TRAINS: love the convenience, hate the price, the insane crowdedness and the ease in which i take the train going the opposite direction to where i want to go half the time
this is 12 am train on a typical Saturday night in Shinjuku.

2. EVERYTHING IS CUTE: love that everything in Japan is adorable and/or pretty, hate that it makes me buy things i don't really need because the cuteness is overwhelming. i'd put pictures of the cuteness, but i'm not sure you'd be able to handle it.
3. SUSHI: love that it's so amazing, hate that i'm forever spoiled and will now never be content with American sushi
4. SWEETS: love that they are all SO FREAKING DELICIOUS, hate that they are making me heavier and my wallet lighter
5. BIKING: love that i get exercise, and every morning we ride past a preschool and sometimes we see the little asian babies being carted around in big rolling laundry hamper like things and it's too adorable to even describe, hate that i have near-death experiences at least once a day-- oh and today i had my first legit crash when another biker turned into me. woo.
6. JAPANESE TEA CEREMONIES: love the sweets, love the tradition, hate the tea and the sitting on my knees. my old roommate amanda from SC is now living in Saitama. she invited me to a tea ceremony- neither of us knew what to expect. turned out to be an all day thing and we went to 4 ceremonies back-to-back-to-back-to-back. i felt i was about to burst of macha (green tea).
THINGS GOD HAS BEEN TEACHING ME THIS MONTH:

this month has been kind of a rollercoaster in all ways possible- physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. but the cool thing is through it all, God has remained constant. i had my ups and downs, in ministry and my own personal life, but God was always there, and is always there, and always will be there for me, walking beside me, picking me up when i fall, dancing with me when i am full of joy.

as part of our training, each of us had to prepare a "Three Minute Testimony." basically, we had to write out our story of how God's changed us and try and present it in 3 minutes. this is not easy. there are so many things God has done in my life- it was hard to know where to start. i decided to focus on how God's been breaking me of perfectionism, because it's very relatable to the Japanese and a huge part of me learning how to surrender to God. while writing out my testimony, i reflected back on everything God's done for me. it's crazy to think of where i used to be, and where i am now. who i used to be and who i am now. i used to find my identity in my perfectionism and in my abilities. now i find my identity in Christ. it took a semester of pushing God out of my life for me to realize how much i really needed Him, a semester of trying to find satisfaction in everything of this world for me to realize that the only thing that can truly fill my empty heart is God's love. the only way i can truly be perfect is not through what i do, but what Jesus has already done for me, by living a perfect life on earth and taking on all my sin and dying on the cross and then conquering sin and death 3 days later and ascending into heaven. i've said i was a Christian my whole life, but i didn't start really living like it til December 2007. i thought i was, but i was living for me, my life was in the center and God got added in where He fit into my life. that's not a Christian life. a Christian life is one where God is in the center, where you cast off your old life and dare to step into the amazing abundant life God has for you, where you tear up your plans and rely solely on God's. but even though i know this now, i still have my moments where i want to revert back to my old ways. even after i started focusing on God as the center of my life, it was a slow process of learning how to trust God more and more. to be honest, even a year or two ago, if you'd told me that i'd be a missionary in Japan i'd probably just laugh. and to be honest, if God had called me to Japan a year ago, i may not have said yes. in fact, i probably would have said no, because i still remember saying i'd never work for Campus Crusade. thankfully God has brought me to a place now where i'm no longer making huge plans and expecting to control my future, and thankfully God's plans are always better than mine anyway so i don't need to plan anymore. anyway, i would challenge you that if you've never really taken the time to reflect on all the ways God has grown you over the years, it's worth doing, and it's worth praising Him about. and most importantly, it's worth sharing with others. our testimonies are quite possibly the most powerful tools the Lord equips us with to share His love. He reveals His story through our stories- never hold back from sharing God's story.

God's also been showing me that His power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). the girls have been going through character studies of people in the Bible, and the more i read the more i realize that every single person God used in the Bible was not nearly equipped for the tasks He gave them. for example, David- he was a skinny kid with a slingshot, how on earth was he going to defeat Goliath? with God's power. my friend joel once told me, "Don't let what you don't have disqualify you from the work that God is calling you to...God likes to use the broken crayons." and it's so true! this month there have been times when i've felt like i'm not qualified enough to be a missionary, not good enough, not wise enough, etc. well, of course i'm not by myself. but God always uses the broken crayons so that when He uses us for his masterpiece, it is not our glory that shines through, but HIS.

one more thing i've been learning is that faith is like a muscle- if we do not continue to build it, it will atrophy. how do we build faith? by leaving our comfort zones and stepping out into the unknown, by leaving the path we think we want and trusting God to know the path that is right for us. a question posed to us in Bible study was:
what would look different in your life if you had a greater hope in God? God has been challenging me a lot lately to take more risks, to think of risks not as risks but as reality, to pray bigger and to allow myself to have a bigger vision of Him and His plans for me. i challenge you to do the same.

what is holding you back from experiencing the abundant hope and joy God has for you? my natural reaction to problems is to immediately try and figure out how to fix it, but i've realized i need to go IMMEDIATELY to God instead of rely on myself, because when i try to rely on myself, i worry, and joy and worry cannot happen simultaneously. an acronym for JOY we learned was:
J esus
O thers
Y ourself

when we put Jesus first, others second, and ourselves last, all other things fall into place.

PRAYER REQUESTS:
- for a movement to explode on both Waseda University and Hitotsubashi University
- for strong male leaders in Student Impact
- for Kanae's growth as a new believer, for her friend Yui to also trust her life to Christ
- for wisdom and discernment in who to continue to meet up with and that the Spirit would lead us to new contacts
- for team unity, for supernatural energy and strength (December is a crazy ministry month)
- for God's provision while the exchange rate is still so terrible

"Now may the God of peace...equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us taht which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." ~ Hebrews 13:12