7/22/10- Good Soil

Bleh, I always forget what happened in the morning so I'm just going to fast forward to lunch.
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For lunch today, Jared, Carrie and I went to the Italian Cafe to meet up with a couple of contacts. We were split up because we couldn't move tables together, so it was just Jared, one of Jared's contacts and I. Jared's contact was actually born in Gardena and grew up there until about elementary school. So most of the conversation was about Gardena and the things that Shun (Jared's contact) remembered. He's actually just doing research at Kyodai, so he's really busy most of the time. It was pretty cool just chatting with him because he speaks like a native English speaker.

After lunch, we went to Tully's to initiate with more people. I approached this guy sitting by himself near our table. He was reading a book about Anne Frank, so I asked him if he was interested in the Holocaust and he said yes. He told me that he wanted to learn about the Holocaust because he doesn't want history to repeat itself. After about 15 minutes we got onto the topic of love. I then told him that I was a Christian, but he immediately cut me off and said "really?". I thought I had offended him, but then he looked through his backpack and pulled out a Bible and a daily devotional! I was so shocked! We then talked about Christianity and Evangelism in Japan and how difficult it is for him to share the Gospel with Japanese people. I was so encouraged by this man, and I flat out told him that he has given me hope for the people in Japan. I said a few encouraging words to him and told him that I would pray for him and his ministry. What's even crazier is that he attends the same Church that our team has been attending on Sunday's. He only attends the Japanese service in the morning which explains why I haven't seen him there. It took me a while to process what happened, but I realized that meeting a genuine Japanese Christian has given me hope. If you look at it from a statistical standpoint, the guy I met was in the category of the "less than 1 percent" Christians in Japan. How cool is that?

At night, our team had an outreach event at a community center near Kyodai. There was a good turnout of student contacts that attended! We watched a short film called "Good Soil" and discussed it afterwards. It was pretty interesting hearing the perspectives from the Japanese students. I'm not sure if the film provoked any questions about Christianity, but it was interesting to all the students.

Tomorrow is our last day of ministry on campus. It literally feels like I've only been here for a week, but at the same time I miss everyone at home so much. Please pray for our team and that the seeds that we've planted will be taken care of by God.