day 8 :)

So I know I am a little behind... okay more than a little but I am updating now on my day off :)
Thank you for being patient and reminding me! It means a lot that you guys are reading my posts and daily praying for our needs here in Japan!

So this blog is for Thursday the 4th :)

Today was our first distribution day and it went really well. We ran out of hope tracts to distribute 30 minutes earlier than expected so that was great news! I think we probably distributed about 1000 or so within the hour and a half we did it! Our distribution process will take place all summer long. We have been assigned the Mitaka area to reach twice so right now we distribute a tract that is for a free cd about Jesus Christ. Then after we reach all these houses and apartments we will return to them later in the summer and distribute the Gospel of John to every house and apartment! Today was my first day of 5 minute english! 5ME is something we will do everyday except Sunday in order to reach people in Tokyo. 5ME is a really easy task to do. Our team stands there with several signs that read 5ME in Japanese and english. The people who would like to do a free 5ME lesson walk up to us and we are able to help them practice their english and prayerfully present the gospel to them. I was able to talk to two people over a 3 hour period and I was so happy about this! I talked to one girl for about 30 minutes to 45 minutes. I was able to tell her a lot about why I was here and get into a spiritual conversation with her, but when it came to wanting to walk through the summary of the bible she wasn't very interested. So in turn I just decided to invest in her and continue to help her with her english. As we spoke she started asking me more questions about why i was there and why I was offering free english lessons. So even though she wasn't interested she sure did want to talk about it still! So from the beginning of the presentation of the Gospel she wasn't interested, but 45 minutes later she wanted to have the summary of the Bible! I was happy to share with her this small piece and we prayed together and she ran off. Please pray that she will continue to want to know more and more about the Word and find me on another day in Mitaka! About 30 minutes later an older man came up to me and wanted to speak english! This is unusual in Tokyo because usually the older generations do not know english but the younger ones do because they are being taught in school. So I went along talking to this man and pouring into him as he worked on his english. He actually lived in the states while getting his doctorate in science and continued to learn english till this day. he was a very smart man, but because of his science background and his continuous studies in this field, he was resistant to the Word. He knew about it and that there was only one true God, but he said it was not for him to believe. When living in the states his host family took him to church every Sunday with them, but he never accepted Jesus. So at the end of our conversation and after many questions of why i was here in Japan, I asked him if I could pray for him. Of course he let me because Japanese people are very kind and as I prayed he continued to thank me. Please pray that this man will search for the real science of this world. We were created by our Father! After 5ME for 3 hours or so we had a session of free bible study with one of our M's serving here in Tokyo. For FBS we stand there with these huge signs and those interested in a free bible come to us. I did this last night for 4 hours with Brian! So today only Rachel and Brian had to do it the whole time because I had a dinner with one of my contacts from Asia University. Well it ended up that we got kicked out of Mitaka train station for doing FBS so they ended up going to Shibuya which is where we live and the largest cross section in Tokyo is! I believe it was a very fruitful night for them at FBS. I have dinner with one of my contacts and one of her friends. These girls are Chinese, so because of that I have no material to offer them and no materials to do a FBS, but because the Lord has blessed me with this friendship and this contact I will continue to invest in their lives. Dinner was amazing and cost me 1300 yen which is way expensive considering we get 500 a meal!!! But it was totally worth it :) I had octopus, sushi two kinds actually, salad, oysters, chickens, pig intestines, and several other fun things :) This was my first time with real sushi... :D It was amazing and I cant wait to have more :) My friend knows why I am in Japan and please pray that even though there are no materials in Chinese for her that there will be an opportunity to present the Gospel to her. There has been a seed planted and the Father is teaching me it grows in time! I pray one day she will find our Father who will truly love her unconditionally! Tomorrow I have the CBU team!

PR-
-Since we have been kicked off Mitaka station for FBS please pray that we will still be able to have 5ME and evangelism still taking place here.
-Please pray for my contact at Asia University and the Chinese barrier there. Please pray that the lack of materials in this language will not be a problem.
-Pray for the CBU team and their time here with us serving as volunteers.
-Pray for the two 5ME opportunites I was given today and that they will continue to search for the one true God.

Haley Michelle

day SEVEN!!!

Well today was my first OFFICIAL campus outreach day! We went to the campus at about 10 am this morning and started off with finding all the hotspots and prayer walking. We did this till about 11:30 when we finally decided to get some lunch! Well today was my fasting day...I will talk about this later. So in short story I got me some water and no food! Well I started off trying to talk to a few girls individually but because of language barriers I was unable to talk to any of those girls. So I decided to focus on prayer and Christ placing someone in my path. I sat there till about 12:30 praying for at least 30 minutes after the failed attempts. A girl sat by me and after convincing myself to be bold and not worry about language barriers, I went for it! Even though after 4 sentences I realized there was a HUGE language barrier :) So I smiled and told her it was nice to meet her! As I turned back to my seat and Japanese guy tapped on my shoulder!!! We sat there and talked for about 10 minutes and he asked if we could meet for lunch on Friday! So Brian, one of my teammates and I have a "date" (not literally) with this new contact of mine! I am so excited because this is my first contact at my new university!!! I asked about the english club and he has told me one of his good friends is in the club and Friday he will give me that information! We want to become a part of the english club because these clubs stress english speaking practice with americans and this is a great opportunity for them and US! At about 2 we left our campus to head to Shibuya, which is where our apartment is, to do free bible study! Well it went really well and I enjoy FBS because the people know what the are getting into when they come up to us. Generally they just want the tract and the gospel of John, but every now and then some of them will want to talk about it and go over the tract with us! So today we worked there from 2-6, handed out about 35 total and talked to about 20 individually! We had one guy ask to take part in a bible study, so he starts next wednesday! Brian and I ate a cheap place that was yummy before heading back to the cave! 

So some great news :) My very first contact that I had dinner with last week from Asia University has contacted me and wants to have dinner tomorrow at 7:30! So I am so excited about this opportunity :) So now I have two contacts that have been texting me throughout the day and I love it so much!!! It is so exciting to know these new friends of mine are interested in hearing the GREAT news of our JC!!!

PRAYER REQUESTS!!

-Pray for the new university I have been placed at - SEIKEI University!

-Please pray for my two contacts. One from Asia Univ and one from Seikei Univ.

-Tomorrow night my team is working at MITAKA our station and doing free bible study. Please pray that this goes well. It will be our first time doing FBS at our station.

-Yesterday I do not know if I told you guys, but we had a girl accept Christ at Asia Univ! I may have said this already, but pray that her heart is loving her new father!!!

-Some of the interns have home sickness and are experiencing a little withdrawals... nothing big but prayer is still needed

-Tomorrow is going to be a long day for my team... we generally are off work by 6, but tomorrow ends at 9 pm... please pray for strength.

-The Cali Baptist Choir Team will join us on our campus Friday!!! Pray that they prepare their hearts for work to be done on our wonderful campus!!!

Haley Michelle

Day 5 and 6!!!

Day 5
Mondays are orientation and training days so today I didn't leave the cave. Well I did but it was only to get ice cream with some of my interns :) For the interns are first meeting was not till 2:15 so I slept in till about 11 and it felt amazing! Our meeting went great and I received the map of my train station and am so excited! I do not remember if I posted that I am in charge of distribution, but this is a huge task for our team! I was a little overwhelmed with the map and the size of our area to distribute to, but Christ is really showing me it is gong to be for HIS glory whether all the houses get reached or not. He has a purpose and we will reach out to those he has called us to this summer! So we had worship at 4 and we had a short type of lesson and prayer time. We really focused on unity and building each other up and working together. I think it was needed not because there are issues or anything but to constantly remind each other that we are here with each other to grow in HIS NAME! So we enjoyed pizza together and it was yummy :) On Monday nights we have mandatory fellowship and it was fun :) mandatory fellowship sort of sounds like punishment, but it isn't at all! It just means we have to take the night off from scheduling events with our contacts! So we sat around and all caught up on fun stuff and things that have happened throughout the week! We eventually went to get ice cream and that was delish!!!

Day 6
So today was my day off and I really enjoyed it! Well I ended up waking up at 6:30 in the morning because of girl problems but eventually after getting sick I was able to get back to sleep. I enjoyed sleeping in till about 10:30ish and then I woke up! I got up and got dressed to go get some groceries and eat lunch :) So I went walking on the Tokyo streets really enjoying my time alone for myself! So I went to two hippie stores and really enjoyed my time looking at tons and tons of Japanese hippie stuff :) I bought several bracelets to take home for my WBU friends and a few high school friends back home. So I spent some time there in those stores and eventually made my way to the huge crosswalk in Tokyo... I ate at a great cheap restaurant and enjoyed eating with my chopsticks! I did very well and it is a place where there are only like 15 seats, so you eat and leave. Well I must share with you that I am proud that I got in and out so fast!!! I ate great with just chopsticks!!! :D So after lunch I made my way to the grocery store or what I would call the Tokyo wal-mart! I got me some lunch meat and bread and cereal and milk and yogurt and good stuff that I currently cant think of as I type up this blog! But I got me some food that will save me form spending money on Mondays when I don't have to leave and on Tuesday my day off! So throughout the day I stayed in contact with my team and a few of the other interns and their teams... We have a NEW SISTER IN CHRIST!!! Asia University which was my first university to visit in Japan, that team led a Japanese girl to Christ! How amazing is that!!! I was so excited to hear about this and it was such a blessing! On my walk around Tokyo I was able to prayer walk for these teams and what a blessing! My team was able to distribute all of their tracts that we were given for the day and I have not looked at the map to see how much they got accomplished but it makes me so happy to hear they ran out!!! My team wasn't really busy today in five minute english and I think the last I heard they only talked to about 10 people maybe? It could have been less...But I know that God blessed us with each one of those people that were talked to! So I pray that there are more opportunities on our next 5ME day which is tomorrow... :D

Prayer Requests!
-Please pray for our new sister in Christ!!! Pray that her heart is broken and now complete with the decision she has made. I ask that you pray over her baptism as well.
-Pray for distribution among all of the teams. There are two days a week that are set out fro distribution! these are hard work days that our teams walk all over their huge area to place the tracts and eventaully the Gospel in every mailbox!!!

Haley Michelle

day 4!!! let it rain let it rain let it rain

DAY 4 --- :)

Today was Sunday which in most countries means CHURCH!!! Well we had our own church service today in the park! It was lots of fun :) We brought out the guitars and had a great worship service in this huge park! It is amazing to see how Christ will draw Japanese to him! We were able to share with many people what we were doing, why we were there and so on! It was a blessing for sure :D So while we were at our church we got to have a bible study and it went really amazing :) We looked through Acts 1 and 2 and talked about what it is really implying about our lives and our calling to Japan. Summary = greatness :) So we had a Japanese christian share his testimony with us today during our church service and it was amazing :) Brought tears to my eyes!

After our church service today we had park ministry time till about 3:30 when we would head to our train stations. WELL! The Lord had some different plans and he let the rain come down!!! It poured and when I say poured I mean rained like I have never seen rain before! There were so many families at the park under trees and their food and their tents and everything was gonna get wet. Apparently this pouring of the rain is so normal though because they bring out more stakes for their tents, get their whole family inside, let the fire just get put out by rain, pull out tarps for the food and act like it is not raining! It was amazing to me... so anyway our team really had a hard time with park evangelism, so I just decided to prayer walk until I found an undercover place to sit down and pray for people :) I found a great place to sit and pray so I sat their and was able to pray for the families, the many families!!!  God blessed us with a few families who joined us under the covered area and we were able to share just a little bit of God's love with them. :D I met a new friend aka dog :) and he was cute and he even had a raincoat on! His owner was able to ask why we were there at the park and one of my teammates and I were able to explain to him we had our own church service this morning at the park and pointed in the direction of where we would be next Sunday if he wanted to join us! :) Well we were able to sit and stay dry well some of us! :) 

Today was a scheduled bible study at our train stations if we had contacts! Well my team and I didnt have contacts that could come so we went ahead and went to our stations to pick our locations. We were able to find our 5 minute english location, our spot for our bible studies and our karaoke church!!! I am so excited our first team comes TUESDAY and we are so ready! They are a group from California and they are a choir.... AWESOME!!! So I found out my day off and it is TUESDAY :) So I am pretty excited ready to rest and enjoy my day in Tokyo.. I haven't decided what I will do, but I will figure it out! :D Anyway so I have some prayer requests to share!!!

PRAYER TIME!!!

-We had a girl come to Christ from Korea!!! She lives here and goes to school and her parents were Christians and HOW AMAZING is she that now she is!!! Please pray for her heart that she will follow through with baptism and sharing with her family and friends :)

-Our journeywoman has a contact that she has been working with the past year and a half and this girl has just continued to turn away the Gospel but really allowed our journeygirl to pour into her! This contact told our girl last night that she felt like she could now see clearly. Everything she was learning about was now clicking in her head and she was seeing the Gospel clearly! How amazing is that!!! Please pray for her heart and that she will continue to seek the understanding of all these lessons! Praise God!

-One of our girls was wearing a japanese shirt we wear given that says jesus christ loves you! in japanese! anyway a man read it and came up to her and with astonishment was like me? and was so excited :) :) how amazing is it that Christ would use a shirt to get one of his children to question the love he has for them! Please pray for this man to understand the tracts we gave him and put it into the mail for us to come invest in him the word of God!!

Thank you guys so much! I love yall and thank you for reading :)

Haley Michelle

MAY 30... day 3 :)

So today was a pretty sweet day and Crist really showed my team today how amazing he can truly be to us if we constantly seek HIS name!!!

We started off our 3rd day of oreintation and learning about our different evangelism methods and all sorts of other things! We had our worship service which was different than the past few days, but still God speaks still :) I love it! So today was a pretty nice day an dit didn't rain! I went running this morning at about 7 and it was just great weather :) I wish I could be that motivated at home to wake up and run in the morning in such beautiful weather :) Anyway after I ran I got dressed and started my day and it really kicked off slow, but ended up amazing :)

We found out our summer teams today who we will be with all summer and though I do not know either of my partners very well, I will get to know them really well all summer! lol My summer partners are Rachel and Brian and it will be a great summer :) We will be at the university I went to yesterday and the same train station that I was located at yesterday... So I am pretty excited about being a tour guide in a few days for my new partners because they have never been :) lol We also got our positions assigned today and I am the WIGTAKE which stands for whatever it takes to get the job done :) So my mail job is to organize the distribution of the Gospel of John getting into every mailbox in my train station! Crazy!!! I am ready :)

Today was scheduled for park evangelism but our M decided to give everyone a day off allowing them to visit their university if they were not aware of where it was and or anything on the campus! :) Our only scheduled event was at 6 pm today and it was a karaoke party with any of our contacts that we have made in the past 3 days. Well we hall had several contacts, but no one on my team had anyone showed up for our karaoke party which was upsetting, but through HIM we found why we were remaining in the area of our station and continueing to wait for people. Christ set up an mazing divine appointment with two of the guys on my team with an older Japanese man and it was amazing! This older man has a mentor who is a Japanese christian and is telling this man we were talking to about Christ!!! So how amazing is it that Christ already has set up someone in his live that is investing in telling him about Christ and then we are apart of his path today and get to share more! The friend we made would not share his mentors name but please pray for these two men! The Christian and the new contact we have made!

After out divine appointment with this prescious man we went to eat and enjoyed some Japanese subway sandwiches :) Tasted pretty sweet! We had the day mostly to ourselves... our lunch we went as an iWitness team to eat at Pepper Lunch! It was a little expensive but great :) I had a type of chicken and rice... how common :D You cook the meat yourself so that is pretty sweet and I had fun with it!... After lunch a few of us went to get some strawberry filled danishes and YUM! So Tokyo has a 3 story wal-mart which of course is not really a wal-mart but they sure do stuff everything into this store in three storys! It was crazy but hey I got to buy me some groceries and was happy about that :)

So today was amazing and Christ truly blessed all of our days! I will update you guys on some other teams news if I hear about it tomorrow morning and remember to post it!

PRAYER REQUESTS:
-My new team..brian and Rachel and I that we can connect and really rely on each other this summer!
-the older japanese man we had a divine appointment with! please pray for his heart and his willingness to allow his friend to invest in his life!
-Please pray for the older man's friend who is already a Christian!!! I ask that you pray for his guidance from God! Praise the Lord that he has blessed our new contacts life!!!
-Please continue to pray for our whole team as a whole and that we will all continue to prepare our hearts daily for God's amazing work!!!

Thank you guys sooo much!!!

Serving HIM
Haley Hill

day 2 :D

so i learned some japanese today and i enjoyed looking at beautiful tokyo under an umbrella all day! :)

today was a rainy day so it is really hard to do 5 minute english so instead my team and i decided to talk to people inside our huge train station and learn some japanese... we did a lot of prayer walking today, well at least I did! It is harder as a female because we only talk to girls... so I didn't have a lot of contacts today, but I was so blessed with the ones I was able to talk to! Inside the train station today I stopped to talk to a junior high aged girl about learning japanese... she started teaching me some words and I started learning a lot :) So then her friends came up and I got to share with them and why I wanted to learn some Japanese and why I was there in Tokyo! It went great and even though they had to leave after only 5 or 10 minutes. 

I ate me some wendy's tokyo style today :) I had what texans would call a bbq burger with corn, shredded cheese, and pineapple on it! It was amazing :) I love trying new food! :D We went to a new university today and find out tomorrow our teams for the whole summer... but today I was with a team of two guys, two different ones than yesterday.. These two guys were at the university with me yesterday as well but they were not apart of my team! They are great though :) So on our walk today there is a BASS PRO SHOP in japan! Please this cracks me up :) Definitely made me think of some of my guy friends back at home!!!

I went for a walk this morning about 7:30 for breakfast at a bakery and bought a huge cinnamon roll for about 100 yen which is about $1! It was great and I think a few more interns will go in the morning... :) The interns are fun and we are growing closer and it is awesome! 

God really showed me today to depend on him and to go to him through prayer! He wants me to rely on him but I really have to choose to do that! As I was walking through the train stations around and around looking for people to help me learn japanese I decided you know I can use this time in prayer! Well not too long after that God showed me the junior high girl to talk to which eventually led to a group of junior high girls! How amazing he is! 

well i need to go workout, so have a great day and thanks for everything!!!

SERVING HIM

Haley Michelle

FIRST FULL DAY!!!

awww today was AMAZING :) I just want yall to all know I love Tokyo Japan and though I will come back, I will miss this place :) Ya it is that amazing after one day!!!

okay so my base camp was awesome! My team of ten of us really connected!!! We enjoyed igosia, for those of yall that not know what igosia is ill let you know just a tad bit! iWitness the group that has sent us here at base camp IS igosia... they put us through samples of things that can happen at customs, immigration and different random cultural things that can happen... I will just finish talking about it by saying it is tons of fun! 

we got up at 4:30 a.m. to take off for the airport and flew off about ten in the morning :) the flight was a looooong 14 hours but we were all so excited to get here! i am still so excited!!! we took a train and a bus for an hour then took a 45 minute hike up to our apartment :) I will have some amazing legs after this summer! Praise the Lord for no jet lag!

Today was our first full day and it was amazing! we had our orientation together with the other interns from the imb and our leaders. so today we enjoyed lunch and i must tell you i ate octopus!!! AMAZING! lol so today a small group that i was in took about a 30 minute hike and a 20 minute train ride to a university! i was with two partners inside the latte place hanging out and the Lord really allowed us to open up to people!!! i spoke with about a total of 1o girls and they were SO excited to talk to me :) The first girl I started with came to our dinner tonight! I will talk about this in a minute :) I sat down with a group of about 3 after my first contact and started talking to them, but there was small language barrier there and it was difficult to share with them. After this barrier several friends of these girls wanted to have small takl as much as they could, so I said OF COURSE! And I enjoyed some talk with them for a little bit before they returned to class. Then I was sitting there enjoy a latte (I do not like coffee well lattes for those of you who know this!) and a Japanese girl tapped on my shoulder and wanted to talk! The Lord just really set this divine appointment us because we ended up talking the rest of the time!!! 

So tonight we had dinner with new friends and I was so happy some of my girls showed up!!! The two others in my group had some of their guys show up too!!! It was amazing we had about 20 new friends show up for dinner :) I tried a new dish which was great :) even ate some seafood! Be proud! lol Our group was able to share the gospel with several of our new friends and one ACCEPTED!!! Praise the Lord :)

The Lord is doing some amazing work here! Please continue to pray for Tokyo!!!

SERVING HIM

Haley :)