Nara and Cooking Battle
Our last few days in Japan were full of opportunities to deepen our relationships with the students and share the Gospel with them. On July 4, we spent the entire day with students from OPU at Nara, a popular place to go sightseeing. At Nara, the students showed us several Buddhist temples and brought us to one of the biggest statues of Buddha in the world. We asked the students what they thought about Buddhism, since almost all Japanese people grow up performing Buddhist rituals. Most of the students said that they didn't really believe what Buddhism taught, but they burned incense, prayed to Buddha, and performed other ritual practices because it might bring them good luck. We used these questions about Buddhism to springboard into Gospel conversations. At the very least, we tried to get them to think about what they believed and why.
After our day in Nara, we invited several of the students to spend the night at the church. Six of the male students agreed to stay, so Collin, Nate, Dan, and I had a sleepover with them. While we were all in our sleeping bags, we played the onion skin game, a game in which each person asks a question and then every other person answers that question. It's called the onion skin game because each question gets progressively deeper, just like the layers of an onion. Collin, Nate, Dan, and I tried to ask pointed questions. For example, Nate asked, "What is the most important thing in your life?" The students gave their various answers, but Collin, Nate, Dan, and I all answered, "God" and explained why. We talked about who God is and what He has done for us- why He's so precious to us. It was very easy to see the contrast between the students' answers and our answers. For the most part it seemed like the students understood what we were saying. The sleepover was great. There were a lot of laughs, and the guys on our team were able to form deeper bonds with the six students that came.
Because the students slept over at the church on Saturday night, they were able to come to Sunday service the next day. Not only did those six students come, but three other students came as well. After Sunday service, we had planned on hosting a cooking battle (iron chef competition) at the church. We didn't know how many students to expect. We thought that maybe 15-20 would show up, but about 40 students ended up coming! Praise God for so many opportunities to share the Gospel.
After our day in Nara, we invited several of the students to spend the night at the church. Six of the male students agreed to stay, so Collin, Nate, Dan, and I had a sleepover with them. While we were all in our sleeping bags, we played the onion skin game, a game in which each person asks a question and then every other person answers that question. It's called the onion skin game because each question gets progressively deeper, just like the layers of an onion. Collin, Nate, Dan, and I tried to ask pointed questions. For example, Nate asked, "What is the most important thing in your life?" The students gave their various answers, but Collin, Nate, Dan, and I all answered, "God" and explained why. We talked about who God is and what He has done for us- why He's so precious to us. It was very easy to see the contrast between the students' answers and our answers. For the most part it seemed like the students understood what we were saying. The sleepover was great. There were a lot of laughs, and the guys on our team were able to form deeper bonds with the six students that came.
Because the students slept over at the church on Saturday night, they were able to come to Sunday service the next day. Not only did those six students come, but three other students came as well. After Sunday service, we had planned on hosting a cooking battle (iron chef competition) at the church. We didn't know how many students to expect. We thought that maybe 15-20 would show up, but about 40 students ended up coming! Praise God for so many opportunities to share the Gospel.
After the cooking battle, our team had planned a time where we could share our testimonies. In a lot of ways, our time together after dinner was a culmination of the entire trip. Many of the students who came were the students that we had been interacting with in the past two weeks. The students knew us. They trusted us. They cared about us. And they knew that we cared about them. They knew that when we shared the Gospel with them, it was coming from people who really cared about them. It's BECAUSE we cared about them so much that we wanted to tell them about Christ and the free gift of salvation. After two and a half weeks of building relationships, I think the students really understood that. Dan and Linda both shared their testimonies, and I shared the Gospel one last time.
After the three of us talked, Okada Sensei gave one last challenge to the students. He encouraged them to seriously think about Christianity, eternity, and their own souls.