6/28/10

Sunday Sunday Sunday! Today we went to a church in Kyoto. It was a very small traditional church with wooden floors. The majority of the people there were elderly people, and only a few teenagers. Even though everything was in Japanese, it was such a beautiful service. While we were standing and singing worship in Japanese, I started to think about my mother who was born in Japan. Then I saw a middle aged woman raise her hands to worship, and I began to break down and cry. It started off with just tears filling up my eyes, then it escalated to me sitting down and balling my eyes out. While I was sitting down and covering my eyes, I was crying out to God. I begged God to soften my family's heart so that they can see how much God loves them and wants to be with them. But the tears that fell weren't all sad tears, they were also tears of joy for the Japanese people in that room. Japan as a country is less than 1% Christian, but to see those people in that room worshiping God made me so happy and gave me hope.

After church, we all went to Shijo to eat lunch. Shijo is full of stores and shops, so there are many tourists and locals. We ate at this restaurant with a cool view that overlooked a part of the city. I had curry udon, and it was delicious. Afterwards, we checked out a few stores. I bought a Japanese world cup jersey, then we went home. The rest of the day was pretty much just hanging out and getting ready for our ministry that's starting tomorrow. Please pray for the two campuses (Doshisha and Kyodai) and that God will use us to build relationships with students. I know that God is going to do great things at these campuses, in this city, and in this country.