I walked into the country of Japan and immediately got swept away first by how much it felt like home in a way with temperatures between 20 and 40 degrees but next by the city life which I would be engulfed in for the next three weeks. A dream of mine has always been to live in a studio apartment in downtown Chicago, not for my whole life, but for part of it. So when my team and I found out we would be staying in a studio apartment right in the heart of downtown Osaka, Japan in a trendy area called Shinsaibashi, you can perhaps imagine the weight of my excitement.
For the first few days, I was certainly enraptured by the sights, the sounds, the new people, the air of familiarity, as Japan is a very first-world, developed country. When we did our prayer walks, I walked around with a bit of naivety. It didn’t take long, though, for my eyes to be opened to the great need all around me. Here, there were homeless people; there was drug abuse and alcoholism; there was prostitution and very broken marriages; there were masks.
So many masks.
These masks covered the faces of broken people who used clothes and makeup to try and put themselves back together. There was a deeply rooted fear of being transparent, so instead, people seemed to become someone almost completely different, nearly forsaking the very parts of them that made them who they are.
So my eyes became open, seeing this need all around me. And I certainly knew how to pray. Yet tackling the brokenness of the area was something far beyond my abilities with a time constraint of less than a month and a language barrier stronger than I’d yet experienced. This certainly would be a month of opportunity to rely on the strength that comes from the surpassing greatness of following the Lord.
I didn’t realize how much I would need to rely on that strength throughout the course of the month. I mean, I always know I need to. I always know I need the Lord. In fact, I know that not only do I need Him, but I want Him.
I sometimes forget how much though.
Rewind to the beginning of the month. The word transition would be a nearly all-encompassing, enough-said kind of word here. Squad leaders were raised up. Two of them came from my former team, Peculiar Treasures. New teams were formed. I gained two precious friends, LaShon and Stephanie. And I was asked to step into team leading for my sweet team.
I didn’t exactly know what to do with all the transitions. With the transitions came new joys and new challenges. On top of that, I experienced some big revelations about my own character and desire for personal growth that the Lord would have me begin walking through in Japan. So, with the transitions, with the new revelations about myself, and with the awareness of a whole lot of brokenness all around me, there was a lot to process. Except, I didn’t really process much until we left. I didn’t know how. I hadn’t taken much time to look in the mirror and discover a mask covering my own face.
