7/2/09
BAPTISM DAY!!!
We started off our morning with distribution in the Mitaka community! There were 4 of us today because rachel went to pick up a team of just one person from LA! We are excited about this and later I will share some amazing news :) Anyway so we did distribution in the rain and though we didn't get much done... we are happy we have continued to distribute through the hard times! We have seen at least 40 responses from the distribution! How amazing is it that these people are sending in the tracts wanting a free DVD!!! This is huge in japanese culture, very different from something they would generally do! We are excited that these people are seeking to find something more and we can offer them JESUS! :) :D After distribution today we had a short lunch and went to another station in order to meet one of new brothers in Christ!!! We are so excited for him! We had his baptism today and it was the most amazing thing I have ever been apart of! We all met together and drove to a river close by where we are baptizing our contacts this summer. It was such a blessing to see how exciting our friend was to be raised into a new life!!! Definitely brought tears to my eyes as I watched Brian baptize him! Such a blessing and our God is mighty to save!!! After his baptism that friends and M's attended we had a small party for him! We had cheesecake and grapes and muffins and watermelon and as you can see I was so excited! I got to help one of our M's put it all together and I can't even tell you how American I felt decorating everything :) It was like I was at my own house celebrating this wonderful spiritual marker in our friends' life! Such a blessing to be a part of today. So today when our teammate went to go and get the one man team she had a surprise waiting for her! The one person team was her MOM! It was one of the sweetest things ever and such a blessing for her! Today was just such a great day and GUESS WHAT! 4 people accepted Christ today!!! Two people did this during 5ME and two more during free bible study at two different stations! Our Father is moving in this nation!!!
PR's:
-rachel's mom being in Japan!
-girls and future husbands
-gotokyo high school interns and starting ministry
-the baptism today! what a blessing
-our new brother in christ that he continues to be on FIRE!
-Mitaka station
-the nonbeliever friends who joined in on the baptism today
haley michelle
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
day number thrity five!
7/1/09
Happy JULY!!!
Well today was a campus ministry day :D We have really been enjoying our campus days and have been able to invest in many of our new friends lives! We frequently go to basketball club practices and enjoy that so much! For those of you who don't know, I use to play basketball and really enjoyed it, but I had to choose in high school which varsity sports I wanted to play. So long story short soccer and basketball our during the same season and soccer is my passion so end of story! Anyway so today we got to campus and gave our new team members a tour of our campus. Around noon we headed to basketball club and had a lot of fun with them! The girls just play in whatever they wore that day, so I must say this was the first time I have ever played basketball in a dress! Brian and the guys in basketball club have a great time and Christ has blessed us with this ministry. After basketball practice was over the girls went to eat with some of the friends they made while watching Brian and I practice with the active club members! Brian an I went ahead and went to the lunch area and ate lunch together while we were waiting our teammates. We ended up sitting there talking and reading in our bibles when two girls came up to us! One of them I was already in contact with from last week! She speaks very good english and she grabbed our "books" and was like what are you reading! So what a great opportunity we had to share with both girls that we were reading our bibles and we were able to sit and talk to them for a good 30 minutes or so! God used us to tell these two girls just while we were reading HIS word! Both girls are very interested in learning more and hopefully tomorrow I can have lunch with them :) I am excited about these two girls and being able to invest in their lives! PTL!!! After campus ministry Brian and I gave our new teammates, tori and Jordan a tour of the area between our station and our campus. There are many shrines and a few small temples. We led them through these and were able to pray over them together as a team. God knows what he is doing and each day as we pass these places, we cry to our Father to break the walls! :D We also went ahead and gave them a tour to our park where will we do ministry on Saturdays together! This weekend will be our first weekend there and we are excited about that :) We came home earlier than expected after campus ministry and all of the tours! The girls were needing to take care of things in their apartment building, so we called it a day after meeting 2 great contacts! We are so excited for the baptism tomorrow!!
prayer requests :
-New believer's baptism!!!
-that Christ will continue to bless our teams with interested contacts
-Basketball club and willingness to let us join in
-2 girls we met today!
heylee
Happy JULY!!!
Well today was a campus ministry day :D We have really been enjoying our campus days and have been able to invest in many of our new friends lives! We frequently go to basketball club practices and enjoy that so much! For those of you who don't know, I use to play basketball and really enjoyed it, but I had to choose in high school which varsity sports I wanted to play. So long story short soccer and basketball our during the same season and soccer is my passion so end of story! Anyway so today we got to campus and gave our new team members a tour of our campus. Around noon we headed to basketball club and had a lot of fun with them! The girls just play in whatever they wore that day, so I must say this was the first time I have ever played basketball in a dress! Brian and the guys in basketball club have a great time and Christ has blessed us with this ministry. After basketball practice was over the girls went to eat with some of the friends they made while watching Brian and I practice with the active club members! Brian an I went ahead and went to the lunch area and ate lunch together while we were waiting our teammates. We ended up sitting there talking and reading in our bibles when two girls came up to us! One of them I was already in contact with from last week! She speaks very good english and she grabbed our "books" and was like what are you reading! So what a great opportunity we had to share with both girls that we were reading our bibles and we were able to sit and talk to them for a good 30 minutes or so! God used us to tell these two girls just while we were reading HIS word! Both girls are very interested in learning more and hopefully tomorrow I can have lunch with them :) I am excited about these two girls and being able to invest in their lives! PTL!!! After campus ministry Brian and I gave our new teammates, tori and Jordan a tour of the area between our station and our campus. There are many shrines and a few small temples. We led them through these and were able to pray over them together as a team. God knows what he is doing and each day as we pass these places, we cry to our Father to break the walls! :D We also went ahead and gave them a tour to our park where will we do ministry on Saturdays together! This weekend will be our first weekend there and we are excited about that :) We came home earlier than expected after campus ministry and all of the tours! The girls were needing to take care of things in their apartment building, so we called it a day after meeting 2 great contacts! We are so excited for the baptism tomorrow!!
prayer requests :
-New believer's baptism!!!
-that Christ will continue to bless our teams with interested contacts
-Basketball club and willingness to let us join in
-2 girls we met today!
heylee
34
6/30/09
LAST DAY OF JUNE!!!
Wow this month has gone by sooo fast and its is amazing how much God has done in this past month! We have told 100's of people the gospel for the first time in their lives and God has continued to bless us with meeting Christians! It is such an amazing feeling to be out on the field and have a Japanese Christian come up to us and talk with us! Well today was my day off so you can imagine what I did if you have kept up with my blogs this past month! I caught up on my emails which was actually a lot of fun :) I have many friends and family members who email me at least 2 times a week and it is so great to hear from them! So I enjoy writing them back and reading what is going on in their lives back home! I was able to sleep in today which felt so nice! After a long day at the river yesterday and a fun night with my roommates, I enjoyed sleeping in and just relaxing! I also caught up on my blogs today! lol If you haven't already noticed that :) It was a rainy day outside today so everyone got back earlier than normal because of the weather. So for dinner, I went out to eat with some of the interns at another favorite place of ours just right down the road! It was a nice day off and even though it seems from my blog I didn't do much, I really did! i got work done that needed to be taken care of :) The high school interns from my team, tori and Jordan came over to my apartment so that was fun! :) I think they are shy, but they will open up eventually! I am not shy as you may know, so hopefully I can help them to open up and be CRAZY!!! :D I talked to a friend back home today and found some sad news out. Please remember my friend in your prayers.
pr's=
1. seikei university and basketball club
2. our new contacts from the university
3. one of our new believer's has set his baptism date!
4. motivation during long hot days :) all for HIM!!!
5. friend back home dealing with some hard stuff
haley michelle
LAST DAY OF JUNE!!!
Wow this month has gone by sooo fast and its is amazing how much God has done in this past month! We have told 100's of people the gospel for the first time in their lives and God has continued to bless us with meeting Christians! It is such an amazing feeling to be out on the field and have a Japanese Christian come up to us and talk with us! Well today was my day off so you can imagine what I did if you have kept up with my blogs this past month! I caught up on my emails which was actually a lot of fun :) I have many friends and family members who email me at least 2 times a week and it is so great to hear from them! So I enjoy writing them back and reading what is going on in their lives back home! I was able to sleep in today which felt so nice! After a long day at the river yesterday and a fun night with my roommates, I enjoyed sleeping in and just relaxing! I also caught up on my blogs today! lol If you haven't already noticed that :) It was a rainy day outside today so everyone got back earlier than normal because of the weather. So for dinner, I went out to eat with some of the interns at another favorite place of ours just right down the road! It was a nice day off and even though it seems from my blog I didn't do much, I really did! i got work done that needed to be taken care of :) The high school interns from my team, tori and Jordan came over to my apartment so that was fun! :) I think they are shy, but they will open up eventually! I am not shy as you may know, so hopefully I can help them to open up and be CRAZY!!! :D I talked to a friend back home today and found some sad news out. Please remember my friend in your prayers.
pr's=
1. seikei university and basketball club
2. our new contacts from the university
3. one of our new believer's has set his baptism date!
4. motivation during long hot days :) all for HIM!!!
5. friend back home dealing with some hard stuff
haley michelle
33 <3
day 33 :)
6/29/09
It is MONDAY!!! And generally Mondays are for meetings and fellowship, but not this Monday! We went to the river today and had so much fun with our new interns! Originally we were going to go to the river tomorrow, but it was such a beautiful day God blessed us with, so we couldn't pass it up! We all had hot dogs and chips and drinks and swam in the river :D There was a small cliff that we were able to jump and dive off of so that was an adventure! The water was pretty cold though so I didn't stay in as long as some of the crazy interns, but it was so much fun! I was able to get out and dry off and hang out with some of our new interns! i have a good friend that I had already known before coming last week, so we were able to sit down and talk for a bit! i am excited about her being here and she has an amazing ministry team! we ended up staying at the river till it started to rain, so it was a good 3 or 4 hours! It was a fun time being able to hang out with our new interns and connect with them before going out to our sites! :) Tomorrow all the new teams will start their ministry back up with the 2 new high school interns! Tonight for dinner I went to meet one of my friends here, Katrina's friend.. at starbucks! He was able to make it this time because last week he wasn't and katrina was sad! i was so excited to meet him :) he seems like an amazing friend and God is so funny! they went to high school together, but kat moved away for college 4 years ago! So God connects them not in Cali or Texas but in Japan!!! God is GREAT! :D We ate dinner at one of our favorite restaurants tonight, one of the places you get to cook your own meat! Then the rest of tonight we just all hung out together and talked about our past week! Tomorrow is my day off!
Prayer -
...Brian has a bible study set up with a new believer
...pray for our new contacts and their willingness to meet with us
...seikei university and our faculty members
...high school interns!
...team unity with 2 new members :)
...setting up baptisms with new believers :D :D
hay hay
6/29/09
It is MONDAY!!! And generally Mondays are for meetings and fellowship, but not this Monday! We went to the river today and had so much fun with our new interns! Originally we were going to go to the river tomorrow, but it was such a beautiful day God blessed us with, so we couldn't pass it up! We all had hot dogs and chips and drinks and swam in the river :D There was a small cliff that we were able to jump and dive off of so that was an adventure! The water was pretty cold though so I didn't stay in as long as some of the crazy interns, but it was so much fun! I was able to get out and dry off and hang out with some of our new interns! i have a good friend that I had already known before coming last week, so we were able to sit down and talk for a bit! i am excited about her being here and she has an amazing ministry team! we ended up staying at the river till it started to rain, so it was a good 3 or 4 hours! It was a fun time being able to hang out with our new interns and connect with them before going out to our sites! :) Tomorrow all the new teams will start their ministry back up with the 2 new high school interns! Tonight for dinner I went to meet one of my friends here, Katrina's friend.. at starbucks! He was able to make it this time because last week he wasn't and katrina was sad! i was so excited to meet him :) he seems like an amazing friend and God is so funny! they went to high school together, but kat moved away for college 4 years ago! So God connects them not in Cali or Texas but in Japan!!! God is GREAT! :D We ate dinner at one of our favorite restaurants tonight, one of the places you get to cook your own meat! Then the rest of tonight we just all hung out together and talked about our past week! Tomorrow is my day off!
Prayer -
...Brian has a bible study set up with a new believer
...pray for our new contacts and their willingness to meet with us
...seikei university and our faculty members
...high school interns!
...team unity with 2 new members :)
...setting up baptisms with new believers :D :D
hay hay
Monday, July 6, 2009
day thirty two :)
6/28/09
Well we are getting close to JULY!!! Which means we are even closer to ending our summer journey. I am definitely a little sad that our work is almost over, but I know HIS work won't end here! Well we had church this morning in the park and we had special guests!!! Our high school interns camp in this past week while we were away on our retreat to the lake! We were all very excited to get to meet our new 20 interns and my team got to have 2 new girls on our ministry team! Our two girls are precious and as the Wigtake leader I get to invest in them and i am so excited about this! I love looking at my life and seeing how so many people have poured into me and that is why i am here today. Without those people in my life guiding me closer to Christ, I would definitely not be here in Japan! So thank you! Because more than likely you are one of those people who has helped to get me where I am today :D So at church this morning we had a bible study with our new team members and my current team members. There are now 5 of us on the Mitaka and Seikei University team :) We are so exited to begin our work! After bible study and an amazing worship time we ate lunch and then went off on our own to do park ministry :D The new girls went together and I am not too sure what they did, but they enjoyed park ministry together! Rachel, one of my teammates and I sat together and really dove into the word! We were able to just sit and read and digest what Christ was telling us in scripture! Then eventually it started raining so that was fun :) After getting home and waiting for people to come home from hanging out with new contacts and bible studies, a few of us went upstairs in our apartment and watched the boy in striped pajamas... so sad. Tonight was a fun relaxing night and we got to spend time in fellowship with each other :) Our team unity is amazing and I love being so connected with such strong Christians! My new girls, Tori and Jordan have the same day off as i do! So I am very excited about that and being able to invest in them on our days off together! :D
PR:
-new high school interns and their obedience
-encouragement for our new teams and their ministry sites
-new contacts have been made this week!
-house churches are building
-distractions outside of japan for all the interns to let them go and focus on HIM
thank you so much...
haley
Well we are getting close to JULY!!! Which means we are even closer to ending our summer journey. I am definitely a little sad that our work is almost over, but I know HIS work won't end here! Well we had church this morning in the park and we had special guests!!! Our high school interns camp in this past week while we were away on our retreat to the lake! We were all very excited to get to meet our new 20 interns and my team got to have 2 new girls on our ministry team! Our two girls are precious and as the Wigtake leader I get to invest in them and i am so excited about this! I love looking at my life and seeing how so many people have poured into me and that is why i am here today. Without those people in my life guiding me closer to Christ, I would definitely not be here in Japan! So thank you! Because more than likely you are one of those people who has helped to get me where I am today :D So at church this morning we had a bible study with our new team members and my current team members. There are now 5 of us on the Mitaka and Seikei University team :) We are so exited to begin our work! After bible study and an amazing worship time we ate lunch and then went off on our own to do park ministry :D The new girls went together and I am not too sure what they did, but they enjoyed park ministry together! Rachel, one of my teammates and I sat together and really dove into the word! We were able to just sit and read and digest what Christ was telling us in scripture! Then eventually it started raining so that was fun :) After getting home and waiting for people to come home from hanging out with new contacts and bible studies, a few of us went upstairs in our apartment and watched the boy in striped pajamas... so sad. Tonight was a fun relaxing night and we got to spend time in fellowship with each other :) Our team unity is amazing and I love being so connected with such strong Christians! My new girls, Tori and Jordan have the same day off as i do! So I am very excited about that and being able to invest in them on our days off together! :D
PR:
-new high school interns and their obedience
-encouragement for our new teams and their ministry sites
-new contacts have been made this week!
-house churches are building
-distractions outside of japan for all the interns to let them go and focus on HIM
thank you so much...
haley
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
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!
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!
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