Tuesday, June 30, 2009

treinta + uno = 31

6/27/09

well today was our last day at our retreat place and though it was amazing they had to kick us out! we had breakfast this morning and again I enjoyed yummy fruit! :D We had worship and bible study with our M and it was very refreshing and about daily seeking Christ's face and going to him. We read a passage about Jesus going alone to spend his time with God and though I have read it many many times, it was a slap in the face for sure. i really felt convicted on how much time I literally spend on facebook compared to the amount of time I give to my Father everyday. Last night we divided between males and us precious girls and had marriage talk. Though none of us are married, it is definitely on our minds if not close for some of us. For me... ya God has someone out there, but as I have learned this summer and seen it myself - I must be patient! And guess what patience is not only waiting your turn, but always being okay if your turn never comes. I know Christ will take that desire away for a husband if he has called me to a single life in order to devote my whole life to HIM. No worries, but i did learn a lot in our session with the M female! Since my team won the amazing race this week at the start of the retreat we had more free time to ourselves while everyone cleaned up the came and then we were to head out to the bus stop! One of our interns lost their phone along the way back to the cave, but he went back to it and found it! We had a great dinner in Shibuya tonight and am definitely ready for bed tonight!

PR:
-my future husband if I have been called to have one!
-patience for all the interns in relationships
-convictions of spending time with our father!
-high school interns and meeting them!!! UNITY!

hay hay

THIRTY

6/26/09


Well it is Friday and day two of our intern retreat :) Even though I stayed up late I slept pretty great in my room with Katrina! We each have a twin bed and it is great not being in a room with 10 others girls! Don't get me wrong I love all my intern girls, but being away is always enjoyable :D so we had breakfast this morning at 9 am and goodness it was so great to eat some fruit! In Japan fruit is so expensive and hard to buy with the limited food money that we get, so i was stoked about apples and bananas!!! YUMMY! For sure when i get home this summer I will be headed to the grocery and buying me sooo many fruits :) We had a bible study this morning after breakfast and had worship too! Worship was so great to be in a bigger room and really focus on ourselves and how we wanted to worship our father! I love it :D So i really don't remember how much I have told you about this place we are at, but I know I have shared it is by Mt. Fuji and is a lake! So a small lesson i have learned this week from my wonderful guy interns/brothers in Christ! Many years ago... I do not remember this part of the lesson :D Mt. Fuji erupted and created 5 lakes that look like fingers and today and this weekend I am on one of the 5 lakes! Oh so last night i forgot to share with you that I went swimming in the freezing lake with 2 of the guys and Katrina! so much fun, but definitely crazy! Welp that is me i guess :) After worship this morning we had sloppy joes!!! That is so Texan to me and i love that... haha And we had SWEET TEA!!!! yes, i miss food from home but enjoy Japanese food still! Today the girls, well some of us went to the onsin which is a public bath. there are 5 huge pools/baths that the girls have. It is different experience, but definitely something to experience about the culture. The guys of course is separated and from what I remember them saying they had 4 pools.baths and a sauna like we did :) One of the baths outside that i enjoyed was with 20 other women and filled with roses! So BEAUTIFUL! After leaving the onsin after about an hour we went swimming in the lake with several interns! It was warmer than it was last night for sure! We got out and went to dinner with Caleb and Teron at a nice Italian restaurant and had such a great time! I had a squid and artichoke pizza and loved it :) IMAGINE that! :D We had an awesome prayer time tonight for the nation of Japan after dinner. We just all poured prayer out to Christ and his people here! Then afterward we had a bomb fire together and had roasted marsh mellows! So much fun spending time together and pouring more and more love into each other! I went for a 30 minute or more walk alone around the beautiful lake and enjoyed it so much! To be alone and cry out to Jesus in his beautiful nation is great! :D Tonight was another great night. A few of us sat out on one of the many docks and talked about things and got to know each other a little more! :D

Pr-
.nation of JAPAN coming to HIM
.interns and rest throughout this weekend as we refocus for the next month of the summer
.our contacts as we go back after our retreat
.high school interns and unity

haley!

day 29 --- AMAZING RACE!

6/25/09



Well today is the day we travel to our retreat and we have to get there by doing the AMAZING RACE! I was pretty excited when i heard about it because i am so competitive about things like that! SOOO we had a short meeting at 8 and then we were to take off at 9! Everyone couldn't leave till 9 because we had to allow our checkpoint people to get to their location! So as 9 came along we took off and had to get to a train station and solve a riddle in order to find the checkpoint. We found the intern at the point an had to solve 3 riddles in order to get the next one. At this point we were in 2nd place. So we had to get to the next station, find a statue, take a team photo with it and continue to the next checkpoint. As we got on the train to get to checkpoint number 2, we ditched a team and now got in the lead! So once arriving to the next station we had to climb a hill about half a mile or so up and found the next intern with the next clue. So we got our next clue and only had one more train ride to get to the retreat! We jumped on and were secure in our first place lead by at least one hour :) We arrived at the lake and it was breathtaking! So amazing and so beautiful! I can't wait for the next two days here :) So we beat all the teams to our cabin by an hour a half, earned 1000 yen and had "no cleaning" privileges for the weekend! We were able to pick our beds in the cabins first and it was great! I stayed with the 4 girls in a huge cabin while the other 10 girls stayed together in another cabin! they were both very nice cabins and then we went searching for the other 3 lost teams! Eventually they showed up and we had dinner together! Pizza :D and played volleyball (:D) and rode bikes around the beautiful lake! At night one of the guy interns took me out to the lake because i had yet to see Mt. Fuji. So i am thinking it is one of the mountains on the lake and he is like SILLY girl look up! So hello HUGE MT. FUJI! In the view were rows and rows of forests and grasslands and that was as far as I looked because the clouds started. WELL... little did I know above those clouds was FUJI! Breathtaking let me just tell you that :) So I sat there for a good while just thanking God for such a beautiful sight! It was a fun night and we ended up staying up till like 2 am playing phase 10 with 3 of the interns! :D

pr-
.interns and the retreat
.our contacts while we are out of tokyo
.our high school interns learning about their assignments this summer
.M family and having us on vacation
.the many people at this beautiful lake


haley michelle

20 + 8 = 28

6-24

This is my one day of work this week :) With meetings and my off day and then having the rest of this week for our intern retreat today has been my only work day. I had plans to meet one of my contacts today at my university, but she was unable to come. So then she offered having one of her friends that I met last week to come meet me. So of course I was willing! Well it ended up that she couldn't come either, so i stuck with Brian one of my teammates and met with his contact! It ended up being one of the girls birthday!!! We had a small celebration together and sang happy birthday in english to her! Her friends brought her an amazing cheesecake with tone of whip cream and strawberries on it! For those of you who don't know... i can eat a zillion strawberries and if i wouldn't die I would eat tons of bowls of whip cream! :D so i was so excited about this precious girls cake! It was great and I was eating tiny bites because I didn't want to steal her cake... so let me just share with you the girls laughed at me! they were like you are AMERICAN why are you eating Japanese size bites! lol i thought but was funny :D After the short birthday party the girls crashed out on the table and funny thing is i was in the middle of them, so I decided to read one of the books I am reading this summer. Screwtape letters. So i was able to read a little bit before they woke up and had to go to class. After they left I went to meet Brian and the basketball club that we have been meeting with! They had about 15 minutes left, so i went in to watch with them. I love these facts.... #1 You don't wear shoes inside the gym. #2 You wear whatever you have on, girls may be wearing dresses playing basketball! #3 you trip on a basketball if it rolls at your feet #4 You laugh hysterically at the girls :D #5 They do not know the rule of no TRAVELING!!! It is so much fun to work with the basketball club here at our university :D After their practice they all went to class and Brian and I headed home because we were pretty gross. It rained today as we walked to our university, so our shoes were slimy and stunk! We got back pretty early and slowly the other teams trickled into the apartment with the same rain problem! We leave in the morning for our retreat we are all very excited! We will be at one of the five lakes created by Mt. Fuji's eruption! WOO HOO! I am stoked! Katrina and I made some videos for some of my friends along with some of the guys! I mentioned how we make our apartment fun and let me tell you it was great!

PR's=
1. The girl contacts I have been meeting with at lunch on our university
2. The birthday girl and her friends, that we can continue to meet up with them
3. The basketball club and the opportunities Christ is blessing us with!!!
4. The intern retreat and the high school interns that come in tomorrow!
5. The days of meetings for the high school interns while we are gone

galations 6:9

---hay hay

twa twa twenty seven :D

6.23.09

Well today is are oreintation day since we switched it from yesterday. As with everytime I meet with the other WG leaders we shared our prayer requests that I would lik to share with you later in this blog and talked about how distribution is going for all of us. This past week when we had the Brushy Creek team we were able to get a lot more done than we could have with just our team, so i was so excited to share that :) Our map is getting filled in pretty good and I wish i could show you, but I can't :) Imagine a map or a large rectangle and start in the middle of it. We have gone from the middle north and south and have covered many blocks. So now your map that you are imagining is black in the middle about 1/5 complete! So exciting :) We had an awesome worship time together and were able to share great news about all of our ministry spots. On campus ministrys there has been amazing work being done! Some campus' have been inviting our interns to their classrooms! We had a small talent show tonight during our fellowship time together and it was a lot of fun :) I didn't do anything because I couldn't think of a talent, so i decided to just watch :) It was funny and some of the interns have hidden talents! I know this is short, but as with all oreintations days we just meet and hangout together :)

Wigtake PR's:
-Great contacts are being connected. pray that this sontinues and they seek to want more from HIM so that we can continue to reach them with HIS word!
-Home stay girls are leaving to come live with us in the cave (our apartment). pray that the family that had them for 5 weeks was blessed by their presense.
-Two more girls will more out and live with another familly for 5 weeks. This family is hesistant to believe in christ, pray that these girls can share with them!
-Some of our music interns have been blessed with new Japanese friends who also love music! Pray that this creates an opportunity to share :)
-Our university has a greatset up with the basketball club and we are weekly meeting with them and having basketball practices!
-Disribution is slowly making its way to getting closer to being half way complete! Pray for encouragement and motive!
-Christian teachers on campus' !!! Bless them :)
-Intern retreat is coming up..

SERVING HIM
---> haley michelle

veintiseis

June 22, 2009

Well usually Mondays are orientation days for all of our meetings, but we have switched our Monday and our tuesday this week, SO today is my day off :) i took care of all my emails today and worked on my blogs, but obviously didn't catch up on them :) i have to share some great news with you because it excites me and may be very helpful to keeping my blogs up to date! BUT I must go ahead and tell you during our retreat in a few days i will not have a computer for 4 days so I am going to fall even further behind on my blogs! Don't worry though i will eventually catch up :) We now have Internet in our room! That is such great news!!! Now I can sit on mine or katrina's bed and use the computer instead of sitting on a hard tile floor in the hallway by the smelly guy's room! So I didn't do very much today but rest and enjoy being alone for a little while. It rained today so some of the interns were back before dinner time because they needed out of the rain, but it was okay because the girl interns were really able to connect with one another tonight. The ILT team was gone for meetings tonight instead of in the morning which means they finally get to sleep in which is great for them! The girls and I made funny dance videos together and just really loved having fun! Sometimes times can get boring living in this apartment with so many girls and guys, but we like to make it fun you never get to old for dress up, so we all put on crazy outfits and hats and jewelry and danced around :) Good times :) the videos are on my facebook if you have me added as a friend :D ENJOY! lol we definitely annoyed the boys, but who cares about them anyways :D

Requests-
*That the girls will continue to grow together in unity :)
*Rest for all the interns
*Preparation for our retreat to the lake!
*New contacts at our sites this week!

HALEY :D

..25..

6-21

It is SUNDAY!!! And it is raining :) So instead of going to the park today we had church at our apartment and it went really well. We had a bible study over Acts 5 :12 -42 and 2 timothy 3:13-15. If you would like to read it to know what i am referring to, I encourage you to do so! It is crazy to me that even in the ancient days when there was such great things happening.. Satan still tried to get in the way. And for the interns right now that is so huge - we have seen so many amazing salvations within the last week, but yet there is so much crap that the devil continues to through at us. BUT - We will endure this together and grow together through everything Satan throws at us this summer! So after our bible study and worship we had a town hall meeting with the M's and their families and all the interns. Next week we have 20 high school interns coming to join us for the rest of the summer, so there are things we want to talk about and fix before they get here! it went really well and we met for about 2 hours and then had the rest of the day off together to spend our time together and loving on each other :D i stayed with Katrina's one of my good friends here this summer and we had plans to meet a friend of hers that she went to high school with in Cali! Well we went to meet him at starbucks and ended up waiting for him for about 2 or 3 hours. Katrina was really upset that he never showed up, but we kn0w there must have been a reason so we ended up leaving and going on with the rest of our day. Hopefully she will hear from him and be able to meet with him sometime! Tonight we found out that one of our interns uncle passed away. :( Definitely was a sad moment and we all feel for her and not being able to be with her family during this hard time. there are 2 cousins that are both younger than 15 that are part of this family... Well my team only has 3 days left before our retreat to the lake! We will not have a volunteer team till we return from the retreat.

Prayer requests:
-Amy and the loss of her uncle. Please lift her family up in prayer through this hard time.
-Brushy Creek team flew home today, one of the team members will head off in two weeks to go on another trip. Please pray for rest and a prepared heart!
-Katrina's friend that Christ will show him the change HE has done in trina's life.
-Intern retreat that we can all push through strong for the nest 3 days before the retreat!

haley michelle

day twenty-four

6/20/09

Well today I was able to catch up on a little sleep because our volunteer team had their debriefing this morning. Brian met with them and our M to talk about everything that went on during their time here. It went very well and they were able to reflect and offer great advice for next summer. They would like to come volunteer next summer which is so great to hear! Rachel and I met them around 2 pm to do one more round of 5ME at Mitaka station :D The leader of the volunteer team mt a contact yesterday, the one that wanted to meet for bible study today. So Brian and him went to meet our new contact for the first bible study! How exciting and it went amazing! He accepted Christ yesterday and is so excited to already dive into the WORD! Two of our volunteers met a Christian photographer today who was able to introduce them to another Christian in the area. it is so amazing to see how God is slowly bringing his people to us! Everyday we have been able to meet someone who is a Christian and or who prays to accept JC. So our GOD is amazing and just wanted to clarify that again :) Tonight is Brushy Creek's last night so we went out to eat sukiyaki and let me tell you it was amazing! Sukiyaki if you don't know is unlimited beef and pork strips that you cook yourself at your table. You have an hour and a half to eat unlimited meat and unlimited vegetables and noodles :) So i loved this and let me tell you I ate so much! Our team blessed us with this meal, which was greatly appreciated. I had an eating competition (imagine that) with one of the guys on the team, haha. Tonight their was a GOSPEL concert in Tokyo! How amazing is this :D There is black gospel that tours around and some Japanese people pay lots of money to join the choir and sing with them. Sad thing is these Japanese that join them are not all Christians... :( Our interns that didn't have teams went to the concert and invited their contacts. From what I heard it was a great black gospel concert and their was definitely God being praised, but it was still a lot of lost people. Tonight was a great day and fun night with Brushy Creek. They leave in the morning!

PR-
.The BC team's safety home and their obedience to come to Japan
.The two contacts they led to Christ and the bible studies that will soon start up
.Those who attended the gospel concert who yet do not know who JC is, that the concert will have opened their eyes and started a spark.
.Our week off as a team with no volunteers serving under us

thank you so much for investing in my summer through prayer

haley :D