July Third, Two-Thousand-Fifteen. FRIDAY: Exciting day (though every day is exciting) because today was the first day of SUMMER JOY. Summer Joy is an outreach for the middle-school and high-school students at the church (and friends who may not be going to church)! |
But that doesn’t start until Friday evening, and so I’m getting ahead of myself here.
First, team meeting! Eric shared with us Proverbs 16:9 and James 4:13-15. It definitely came at the right time as he encouraged us to focus on God’s attributes (His sovereignty, His power, His graciousness, His authority, His wisdom) because He is the only way we can be sustained in ministry. Afterwards, we mostly chilled at church — resting, blogging, emailing, reading, talking, encouraging, eating (lunch), etc, etc. Some of us were even able to help some awesome ladies from the church make TONKATSU for dinner.
And finally, some students started trickling in! Interacting with these students was different than college students because generally their English was not as good, but you know who is good? OUR GOD IS GOOD, and praise Him that we were able to find ways to communicate and have fun.
It was awesome to see students who normally go to HBC and their friends, as well as students from Kat’s English class.
Once we had a good number of students, we started with our faithful icebreaker (but you know who is the most faithful? OUR GOD, anyway): the name game! It was a lot of fun as we had creative names like Money Maai and Ambidextrous Ash (most people definitely gave up saying Ash’s adjective). Then, we played the drawing Siritori game that the OPU students taught us! It was a lot of fun, breaking the ice and getting to know the students.
First, team meeting! Eric shared with us Proverbs 16:9 and James 4:13-15. It definitely came at the right time as he encouraged us to focus on God’s attributes (His sovereignty, His power, His graciousness, His authority, His wisdom) because He is the only way we can be sustained in ministry. Afterwards, we mostly chilled at church — resting, blogging, emailing, reading, talking, encouraging, eating (lunch), etc, etc. Some of us were even able to help some awesome ladies from the church make TONKATSU for dinner.
And finally, some students started trickling in! Interacting with these students was different than college students because generally their English was not as good, but you know who is good? OUR GOD IS GOOD, and praise Him that we were able to find ways to communicate and have fun.
It was awesome to see students who normally go to HBC and their friends, as well as students from Kat’s English class.
Once we had a good number of students, we started with our faithful icebreaker (but you know who is the most faithful? OUR GOD, anyway): the name game! It was a lot of fun as we had creative names like Money Maai and Ambidextrous Ash (most people definitely gave up saying Ash’s adjective). Then, we played the drawing Siritori game that the OPU students taught us! It was a lot of fun, breaking the ice and getting to know the students.
Then, Takashi Kondo gave a message, part 1 of 3. He asked the students, “What is your purpose in life?” From there, he was able to explain that God made you with a purpose. He focused on Proverbs 16:4: “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” He also showed really interesting pictures of buildings that didn’t seem to make much sense…but there was a point! Besides engaging the students and bringing out some chuckles, he wanted to show how sometimes we don't understand why that building is there, but the builder has a purpose. In the same way, many people don't understand their own purpose but God still made them with a purpose even though they may not understand or not want to know. |
To end his message, Takashi left us with a cliffhanger … So, what is our purpose?! Tune in next time to find out! Afterwards, we are able to spend a bit more time getting to know the students before we had to say “good-bye” until tomorrow!
The boys slept over at the church, while the girls went to Midori-san’s small group! It was a really cool opportunity to witness a group of women from the church fellowshipping together and intentionally taking out time from their schedules to study the word. Since we were visiting, it was a little different than their usual small group! We were able to discuss our experiences – talking about what we learned, what was hard, and contrasted American and Japanese culture. It was awesome being able to hear from these women their own perspective of our team, Japanese culture, and advice for us as young adults. And all of this was communicated through the amazing Midori-san, who was able to translate back and forth! After, we separated and went to our homestays … to get some rest before Summer Joy Day 2! |