HE IS RISEN!

Happy Easter from Tokyo!

STINTers, students and 1 of the New Hope pastors Easter Sunday

to be honest, i really missed my Easter traditions this year. every year my mom and i decorate our Easter tree, and the Easter bunny packs an awesome Easter basket, and we go to church and get donut holes while waiting in line because all the people who only come to church on Easter are filling up the sanctuary, and there's always the huge cross with Easter lilies and the stairs are filled with lilies and we sing Lift High the Cross and Christ the Lord is Risen Today and there's the brass and drums and then afterward a lunch of Reeses eggs and Cadbury Creme Eggs...

but Easter here was pretty sweet too. it's been a great way to share the Gospel with students- saying "what are you doing this weekend?" and then they ask me and i say "my church is having a big Easter celebration- do you know about Easter?" and then normally i get to just launch right into the Gospel. it's awesome. my mom sent me some Easter candy which was an awesome taste of home. i brought i bag of Dove chocolate eggs to church today and passed them out to everyone i knew.

speaking of church, i was able to bring Saori (friend from Waseda whom i shared the Gospel with back in January) to a big Easter concert at Tokyo Baptist Church Saturday night. it was really awesome- afterward we went to Starbucks w/ my friend Takako who is a pretty recent Christian and we were able to explain a lot about Christianity to Saori and share a lot about our own testimonies. and Sunday i met up with Noriko, a girl i haven't seen since Summer Project 2 years ago- we had lunch and she came to New Hope's Easter service and really enjoyed it! ALSO, Yusuke, a guy who helps out with the homeless church every Saturday but not a Christian, came to church both last week and on Sunday! he wants to start coming every week, and he sent me a message yesterday saying he'd started reading the Bible! praise God for all He's doing in the hearts of the Japanese!
Yusuke and me after church

i'll write more later, but for now here are a few more pictures from this past month:

Paddy (Waseda English Club) Hanami Party! "Hanami" means literally "flower watching" - in Japan it's extremely popular to have Hanami parties, basically picnics under sakura trees enjoying the park with Yumi and Saki, two new Paddy friends
sakura petals completely covered the lake in the park (sakura doesn't last too long)
Inokashira Park with one of our Student Impact students, Nozomi

PRAYER REQUEST:

WE STILL NEED ONE MORE GUY TO COME STINT IN TOKYO NEXT YEAR OR WE CAN'T SEND A TEAM! IF YOU ARE MALE OR KNOW OF ANY WHO MAY WANT TO STINT, EMAIL CAYLA.HATTER@USCM.ORG IMMEDIATELY!!!!