Hello! This is Chris speaking. Today was another great day of student ministry. In the morning, we split our team into two groups: guys and girls. The girls went to OCC for the second time while the guys went to Sano Tech High School. Since I don’t really know what happened at OCC in the morning, I’ll talk about our visit to Sano Tech.
Sano Tech is a high school where students are educated specifically in engineering and mechanics. There are around 600 students, 530 of which are boys. These students normally find a job straight out of high school rather than going to college because their training is so specific. So, this morning Tim, Collin, Ed, Dan, and I talked with class of about 20 senior boys. We were assisted by two English Mechanics teachers named Hazama and Toda. We began by introducing ourselves, and then we split the class in half and talked in 2 small groups. Dan and I were in one group and talked about our hobbies and interests with the students. Then they asked us a few pre-written questions like what our favorite food was and what we found interesting about Japan. Their English wasn’t so great. It was probably the worst out of all the schools we visited so far. I think they understood about 50% of what Dan and I said, and Toda had to translate almost everything we said. Although we mostly just had small talk, Dan and I did get a small opportunity when one of the students asked us our reason for coming to Japan. We said something like we came to Japan to help Hamadera Bible Church tell people about God. It was brief, but at least they knew the reason we were there. Hopefully, we were a good testimony and showed them the transforming power of God.
After meeting with the boys, we had lunch in Hazama’s office with him and 4 other English teachers. This was definitely an unexpected ministry opportunity. All the teachers knew that we were from a church, so we tried our best to accurately show Christ’s love even while eating lunch. One teacher, Mike, spoke perfect English because he was a recent graduate of UC San Diego. He was in Japan on the Japanese and Exchange Programme (Jet). We asked him if he was religious, and he answered, “No. I just play soccer.” Then he added with a chuckle, “Soccer is my god.” This was very sad to hear even though it was meant to be a joke. It then hit me that we were in a teacher’s office with 5 unbelievers who did not know the true God. I pray that they will come to know Him and the free gift of salvation that He offers.
As soon as we finished eating lunch at Sano Tech, we met up with the girls on our team at OCC. Then we went to visit with the students in one of the classrooms. There, we played human bingo and guess the name of the animal taped on my back game. After that, we broke up into small groups to chat about favorite foods, places, movies, and sports. After that, Christina shared a shortened version of her testimony with Shinsuske (one of the staff members at HBC) translating. Praise God that Christina was able to share the Gospel with every girl in the room through her testimony.
Thank you all for your faithful prayers. Ed’s prayer request list is great (see older post). I’d like to add one more. Please pray that we will have wisdom in how to minister to each individual college and high school. Each school’s students have different levels of English. For example, the OPU students are trained in English speech and debate, so we are able to have extremely meaningful conversations with them. On the other hand, the students at Sano Tech needed to have everything we said translated. In addition, each school is different in their openness to us sharing the Gospel. For example, OCC is a Christian college by name, so talking about God and the Gospel is not only allowed but encouraged. On the other hand, we must be careful not to offend anyone at OPU because they might not invite us back. Please pray that we use wisdom in building relationships with those we minister to and to share the Gospel when the opportunity arises.
After meeting with the boys, we had lunch in Hazama’s office with him and 4 other English teachers. This was definitely an unexpected ministry opportunity. All the teachers knew that we were from a church, so we tried our best to accurately show Christ’s love even while eating lunch. One teacher, Mike, spoke perfect English because he was a recent graduate of UC San Diego. He was in Japan on the Japanese and Exchange Programme (Jet). We asked him if he was religious, and he answered, “No. I just play soccer.” Then he added with a chuckle, “Soccer is my god.” This was very sad to hear even though it was meant to be a joke. It then hit me that we were in a teacher’s office with 5 unbelievers who did not know the true God. I pray that they will come to know Him and the free gift of salvation that He offers.
As soon as we finished eating lunch at Sano Tech, we met up with the girls on our team at OCC. Then we went to visit with the students in one of the classrooms. There, we played human bingo and guess the name of the animal taped on my back game. After that, we broke up into small groups to chat about favorite foods, places, movies, and sports. After that, Christina shared a shortened version of her testimony with Shinsuske (one of the staff members at HBC) translating. Praise God that Christina was able to share the Gospel with every girl in the room through her testimony.
Thank you all for your faithful prayers. Ed’s prayer request list is great (see older post). I’d like to add one more. Please pray that we will have wisdom in how to minister to each individual college and high school. Each school’s students have different levels of English. For example, the OPU students are trained in English speech and debate, so we are able to have extremely meaningful conversations with them. On the other hand, the students at Sano Tech needed to have everything we said translated. In addition, each school is different in their openness to us sharing the Gospel. For example, OCC is a Christian college by name, so talking about God and the Gospel is not only allowed but encouraged. On the other hand, we must be careful not to offend anyone at OPU because they might not invite us back. Please pray that we use wisdom in building relationships with those we minister to and to share the Gospel when the opportunity arises.