Today was a great way to start our ministry here in Osaka. We had only 1 activity today, and it was a clinic with the Troppo soccer club at 4:30pm. With the luxury of time, we started our day at 8 with a time of worship led by Steve. Then English led us in a time of corporate prayer. What a precious time to hear the hearts of these girls as they expressed their concern for the Japanese people. After prayer we had breakfast and then ladies continued their ladies-only time (devos & testimonies) they have been consistently having (led by Jessie).
We left at 12:30 by bus for the ride to a different food court for lunch and team grocery shopping. On the way back, we made an impromptu stop at a Buddhist temple nearby Pastor BJ's church. It was very interesting---and sad. Stone figures worshipped that can't hear or do anything, paper prayers tied to strings that they hope get blown to their god and answered, more expensive wooden prayers (as if the cost makes it more likely to be answered), & bells to wake up their god. As we walked through looking at the various structures, there were gardeners working on the grounds. Paul engaged with them and passed out the team brochure, which among others, has a section about the team and the gospel message in Japanese. Also interesting was the gentlemen who drove his car in to have it blessed by the priest (see video montage). The temple was so close to the church that we when we were done, we walked back. We had about an hour to rest and then it was a bus ride to the clinic. BJ works with this Troppo soccer club once a week, but has had no real platform to be able to talk to them about the gospel. This clinic gave the opportunity to present the gospel as visiting Americans. We split into four groups to do several soccer drills or games that practiced soccer skills. Then they decided (as a lot of the clinics do), that what they wanted most was to play games. So, we broke up the group into 3 groups by age and played games for a while. After the games, we sang our Japanese song and Kelsea gave her testimony. She did a great job. Paul followed up on her testimony with an explanation of how this is a God not just for Americans, but for the Japanese and the whole world. He then turned it over to BJ who was able to then lead into telling them that he was a pastor and that this Jesus that Kelsea and Paul talked about was a very important part of life, and that if any of them wanted to know more to please come to his church. This is something he never would have been able to do without the Seahorses. I had asked BJ how many of these about the familiarity of these people with Jesus, and he said the just 3 of the kids have been to a prior Seahorse clinic, but that for the rest, this was the first time to hear about Jesus. Pray that the seeds planted today begin to grow and bear fruit. After the clinic, it was some fun time playing with the kids, off to the sento to clean up, dinner at the same food court as lunch, home for a quick team meeting and then bed.
Pictures--7/12
Pictures--All
Video Montage--7/12
Testimony-Kelsea
Kimi-Wa--7/12
No comments:
Post a Comment