I’ll start off by saying Japan is amazing! The moment we landed in Osaka I thought, “It feels different here. There is a peace in this country that I’ve never felt anywhere else I’ve been.” As we rode from the airport to our squad home for orientation, my heart melted. This country is absolutely gorgeous with mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, and every day I am blessed by the view of both of them. As I have gotten to partake in ministry and have gotten to know my new friends, my feelings about this gorgeous place have been confirmed over and over.
Our squad is so blessed to be doing ministry with some long term missionaries and Christian families here. The focus that our hosts have in ministry is discipleship. We are focused on building relationships and serving in many different ways. Last week, my team served with a church in downtown Osaka. We stayed at the church and participated in homeless ministry, English meet-and-greets, worship and prayer events, children’s ministry, outreach at the local university, and an end of the week event where we invited all of our new friends. It was a full week full of lots of fruit. We all grew a lot as a team and in our individual gifts.
This week, we are back at our host home. I love my host family! They are so fun and sweet and we just love hanging out and getting to know them! We are so blessed to be in a place this month that really feels like home!
While we are at our host homes (my team is split between two houses), we are meeting daily and doing ATL. ATL stands for “Ask The Lord”. We believe that God’s plans are greater than ours and so we spend time asking God and listening for where He would have us go to prayer walk or do ministry in the area. At the end of this week our team is hosting a 24 hour prayer event at one of our host homes! We will have different stations for people that come to pray, worship, or receive prayer.
We already are in our last week of ministry, which is crazy! It’s sad to think that our time here is almost over. Japan has touched my heart in such a huge way and I am so excited to spend the rest of this month pressing into more of what God is doing here!
