This past week we have finally started passing out flyers for the FUSE. Matt arrived on Monday, so there is now five of us short-termers here. Debbie arrives this Tuesday.
On Sunday at church, a girl named Emi came, who Christine said hadn't been to church in at least a year. She had come just cause she heard us short-termers would be there, and was so excited to meet us. We exchanged emails and she will be going out-to-eat with all of us on Monday. So keep praying for God to work in her life.
On Tuesday after morning meeting, where we had lots of brainstorming on ideas for the FUSE, we went to Machida to pass out flyers. First we stopped the the building where we will be having the FUSE and prayed there for God to embolden us and to open people's hearts. Then, since there were 3 guys and 3 girls, we split up into groups of 2...Hannah and Brad went together one way, Becky and Matt another, and me and Mark another. Many people sounded interested in coming, even though we still didn't know Japanese well enough to communicate too well. We passed out over 500 flyers in the couple hours we were there. When we all met up again, Hannah started a really good conversation with a group of about 6 highschoolers and we invited them to our house for an American dinner; they were quite excited about trying peanut-butter cookies. We exchanged facebook information, and they plan on coming over sometime after high-school testing is over with, near the beginning of July.
After that, Mark went home and we went out-to-eat. Delicious food, American food, but that's besides the point. Becky commented on a shirt a girl was wearing, and that she wanted one like it. Later we left to get the train home, and the same girl and her friend were on the train. So Becky started a conversation with them about where they got the shirt. The girls were really excited to talk with us, we exchanged emails, and they are hopefully coming over soon to eat tacos, which is the "American" dinner they really wanted to try.
When we got off the train, the guys went towards where they're staying and us girls went the other direction to our apartment. Us girls ended up singing, "Hallelujah! Thine the glory" in 3-part harmony on the way home. We've sung alot while we walk places here. This time, though, we were suprised when an elderly Japanese man turned around and said, "Oh that's beautiful"...in English. Turns out he's been to the States to be a Spanish teacher (weird, huh?) so he knows English well. We had a good long talk with him, and it sounds like God has been chasing him his whole life. All these different Christians he's met and everything. He knew the Gospel and thought it was great we came to Japan to share it, even though he's not a Christian yet. But he's planning on coming to the Noborito church to see us again this sunday, so hopefully soon.
So as if that wasn't enough divine appointments, the next day we had Japanese class again...and God showed up again. We got in a circle of students, some who knew more Japanese than we did, and we were supposed to have a conversation with them. Well, one person "by chance" asked Hannah in Japanese what we're doing in Japan, so she pulled out the FUSE flyer and told them about it. One Nepal-ese guy and one Nigerian guy we were becoming friends with there are planning to come to church this sunday now too, and another guy seemed somewhat interested, so we'll keep working on him. It was just so great, so awesome.
So lots of divine appointments in such a short time. On top of that, we still have 3 Japanese classes a week, interesting food experiences, 2 worship practices a week, and one-to-one discipleship time. So there's plenty going on here, but I thought all those divine appointments would be most encouraging for ya'll to hear.
