hi! it its sunday, or our seventh day here. today we went to church, and service started at 8:30. just like at home! but we all walked here and got here on time. we just stayed for the first part of both services. we sang thy word, seek ye first, whiter than snow, and one other one that i forgot. we went to the front and they introduced us. ed, beland, and adler also played listen to our hearts for special music. they had scripture reading which was psalms 99, and a pastoral prayer. when they started the message (pastor doi spoke), we left and had our own devotional.
kevin used john 3:30 to remind us how we must decrease and God must increase in our lives. then we went around and shared which areas we needed to work on. mine, as usual, is loving other people. the opposite of love is pride, as seen in 1 Corinthians 13, which was something that many people shared too. then beland, addison, hyo, and i shared our testimony during a special hour in between services. beland took up half the time so the rest of us had to hurry, but it was all good. i hope that the church was encouraged by what God is doing in our lives. i shared about my mom instead of my "usual" testimony. anyways, we stayed for the first part of the second service again, which was an exact repeat. then addison shared a devotional with us from psalms 115:1-8. he reminded us of the soverignty of God, the vainess of seeking after idols, and how in verse 8 it says we become like what we worship, and since we worship God, we should be growing more and more like him. it was also a reminder how God alone deserves glory and that is the goal of our lives, to bring glory to him. then we prayed for different prayer requests, including the students we got to talk to and meet up with. then we had lunch, and they had interesting rice wrapped in seaweed sandwiches. some had tuna or salmon or more seaweed inside, but some also had some interesting sour plum stuff. then hyo, ed, beland, adler, and i along with shingo, a doctor, and two girls mie and yukari came with us to the convenience store called lawsons to get food. i got potstickers. then we came back to the church to eat and after that i went back to the okadas. i was really tired so since marcia didnt really need help i took a nap, but i slept for 3 hours instead of one. i woke up right before our big dinner with the church. the other people stayed at church to do a sound check, which ended up being several hours long, and the other people went to an international reception, where they sang two songs, amazing grace and what a friend we have in Jesus?, um i forget. they brought 2 girls to our dinner. after dinner ray thanked the church and heather shared what God is doing in her life this past year. then we played some games, including a race where you have to pick up things such as nuts and small pieces of candy using matches as chopsticks. georgia and i were on the winning team. we also played a big game of rock paper scissors with the entire church, and priscilla got pretty close to winning. i think hyo and beland got to share the gospel with the two girls at this time. that was really neat and they said they want to come again soon. also, during the games some people from the osaka prefecture university (OPU) came and they were fed sandwhiches and some people are still talking to them when i came up here to type this. i think they are planning to come out to our other events next week. yay! im thankful for all the opportunities that God has given us to share the gospel with them. also, if you can, please pray for the meetings during the week that we have set to eat dinner and go out with some of the college students. monday night at 6 some OPU students and beland, ed, priscilla, and hyo will be eating together. wednesday afternoon, heather, hyo, and i will be going out with 3 girls from momoyama university. please pray that these times will be fruitful in that we will heed the holy spirit and use every opportunity to point them to God and that their hearts and ears will be open to God. thanks! goodnite!
(oh, and this is irene)
(oh, and this is irene)