People

We had lunch on Tuesday with 3 girls who had never heard the Gospel or any testimonies of people being changed by Jesus. Mari was able to share her testimony, and she really went for it. She told all the details of her story and fully preached Jesus as the only One who can forgive sins and make us clean. It was easy to talk to them - there was no tension or uneasiness at all while Mari was talking. We spent a log time together even though it was the first time for any of us to meet each other. We were all strangers before then.

Left to Right: Chiaki, Sachio, Me, Kazuyo, Mari

We visited a pear garden that is owned by an elderly couple with a Christian daughter who has been living there and helping them for the last 10 years. Every year she hosts an outdoor lunch for about 100-150 people and invites Arthur Holland to come and preach the Gospel. The lunch is held in the pear garden under the canopy of branches. I'll go to this year's lunch if I'm able to. We were able to pray with her and I encouraged her to keep meeting with God daily.

Shoko in her garden

This picture is awful. It was so hot that day and we all look tired, but this is the only picture I have of these girls. The girl on the left is the girl I mentioned in previous posts. This is the group that met for bible study when I taught on ministry to the Lord and to our neighbor. The girl in the middle came on Monday and again for this bible study. She loves God and is hungry for the truth. The girl on the right is not a Christian but wants to study the bible and seems to be seeking a relationship with God.

Mari, Mihiro

Mihiro is a Christian who lives in Tokyo, but traveled up to the Niigata area to spend time with us. She was a Moony for a while, but eventually started seeking out a Christian church, mostly because she likes Gospel music. While her experience with the Moonies wasn't good, she's thankful for it because through it she believed in God, even though they teach that Jesus wasn't raised from the dead. She's pretty shy, so I wasn't able to get more details than that. While she's shy and hesitant to openly say what she thinks, when we started reading the bible together, she had solid, simple, heart-level understanding of the scriptures. She has more strength than she knows.

Gisenia, Grace, Me

Niigata University has one of the best medical research campuses in all of Japan. They have a scholarship program to bring students from all over the world, and these girls are part of that program. Gisenia from Nicaragua is studying orthodontics - particularly working on children that had surgery for a cleft palette. She is researching tooth movement. Grace is from Kenya and is researching lukemia. She comes from a strong Christian family - her testimony is astounding. It deserves it's own blog post. In the second picture is a Chinese girl who's Japanese name is Shue. She is doing research on stem cells. All of these girls really love Jesus. We had instant fellowship together and even Sayaka's parents, who don't believe, were intricately involved in our conversation. God really blessed our time together. After a late lunch, Sayaka's mother wanted to hear me play guitar, so we all sang a few songs together and I played. We were facing Sayaka's parents as if it were a performance, but the Presence of God was there and her parents were clapping along with the music happily as we worshiped together.

Shue, Sayaka, Mari