For the first four months of the race we had pretty much your general/typical types of ministries that you would expect to be doing on a mission trip; visiting hospitals, visiting prisons, vacation bible school, painting churches, cleaning, playing soccer with kids, English classes, etc. And then we came to Japan.
This past month, living in Japan, was very different from what we’ve experienced in the past months in South America. It’s pretty obvious that it would be different because it’s a completely different continent on the other side of the world, but most of us, myself included, didn’t really expect our month to be the way it was.
We arrived in Osaka, stayed at a retreat center to learn a bit about the culture for a few days, and then were sent to our host homes. My team’s ministry for the month was to help out with homeschool for my two host sisters, Hanna and Mariya, and Molly’s host brothers Jake, Luke and Toby; and the rest of the time was spent helping out with house work around our host homes and building relationships with the people who so graciously took us in for the month.
It was a very different kind of ministry than what I was used to but I was able to see, this month, what it was like to serve The Lord in ways that weren’t your typical mission trip, concrete, tangible projects. This month was spent pouring into my host sisters, spending time with them, hanging out, watching movies, playing cards, showing them the love of Christ; and spending time with my host parents, hearing how they came to Christ and sharing our stories with them as well.
Like I said, this past month was very different from what typical ministry looks like but what I loved was that I was shown how ministry might look like at home (if home is somewhere I am called) and how I can be intentional in everyday service for The Lord.
I have learned that doing work for The Lord looks very different everywhere I go, but I was also able to see that he gave me an experience in Japan that I could not have had anywhere else; the memories and relationships I’ve made will last a lifetime.
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