Back home.

As all of you guys are aware by now, we have made it back to Atlanta safe & sound. :)

These past few weeks in Tokyo were full of challenges, growth, and love.

We look forward to tell you all about our trip.

See you all soon.

Love,

Diana.

P.S. Sorry for the randomness of this entry; I felt the need to give our 2010 missions blog some sort of closure & not leave it up in the air. :]

Good morning / afternoon / evening.

This is Diana with an update. :]

To be honest, these last few days have brought a ton of stress upon stress among all of us - and yes, it was evident. From lack of sleep, to stress brought on by students & each other, the reasons behind our emotions were plenty. I, too, had my stresses & negativity inside of me and I got even more discouraged by witnessing my brothers & sisters having negativity as well. I decided to try to be an encouraging light to each & every one of us here by masking my stress to lift everyone up, artificially. Of course, that backfired and ended up in a failure.

I distinctively remember Pastor Young's sermon a few Sundays ago:

"Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good." -Romans 12:9

My attempt to love others failed not only because I was suppressing my own feelings inside, but also because I didn't cast my anxieties to the good Lord. My love wasn't genuine.

It's kinda neat how God places you in these kinds of situations. Before the trip, I asked for more challenges to come my way. I feel like a stronger person each time He helps me overcome them.

We've been sharing our testimonies every night. It's such a great blessing to hear the journeys that my brothers and sisters have come from and are going through.

Today is our last day of classes. Tomorrow, we'll be having a party & a graduation ceremony for the children. It's been a great experience having the pleasure to teach these children.

With (genuine) love,

Diana.

Sorry for the late post!

hey everyone this is andrea:)

This is the first time ever blogging so bear with me please.

Okay, for me in the beginning, I wasn't used to being served and catered to and it made me extremely uncomfortable.I was so troubled but Pastor Young told me that I need to learn to accept it. There is this woman in particular, she has SUCH A LOVING HEART. I don't know anyone who loves to serve more than she.

The past few days, it's been pretty difficult because of the stress. So yesterday, we started to talk (just us girls) and and rebuke each other with loving hearts. Grace shared how Pastor Young said when we rebuke, we should come to tears. I think through that talk, we were able to undertand a lot better. Also, the kids are so lovable and bright. At first, they didn't listen and we were worried .But through God's grace, the kids are learning and absorbing what we say.We are having Hanabi(fireworks) tomorrow!

See you soon! :)

My Prayer Request:

1. I pray that we make a core girl group.

2. We soak in as much as possible.

3. Trust in Him through the good and especially through the bad.

Guess Who?!?

haha hey guys it is your truly Samuel Kim again :]

Andrea really wanted to blog today but the internet went down in her room so God has given me the privilege of giving you guys an update of our mission here in this beautiful country of Japan.

As you all know today was the sabbath today. If you think that our days back home are long of having a youth service and EM service and bible studies, it is even longer in Tomei International Church. They have a total of four services back to back. It is quite exhausting for the Pastors and for the members. Nonetheless, God pours out overabundant blessings for every single service! It is so exciting to see God working here in this petite but Christ centered church.

Today during the main service Andrea and I had the opportunity to give our Testimonies. It was a nervous but blessful experience for both of our christian walks. We got to profess our love for our Lord and to encourage the congregation here of how God led us to the Japan missions team. We both got to talk about our passions and the hard work we did to raise money for the trip.

Another blessing today was that my sister and I had the privilege of seeing one of our mother's close friends today. She is a christian artist that has been performing for 30 years. Her name is Choi Myoung Ja. The entire congregation got to hear her beautiful performance and be motivated to continue to strive for our God. she reminded us to be thankful to God for all of the blessings he is giving in our lives even in the mist of our sufferings. She was adamant about her belief that our hearts should always be thankful and faithful to our God even though our world, our health, our worldly possessions, and even our families are not doing so well. It was such a big encouragement for me to feel thankfulness to our God today. It reminded me of my lack in devotion and love for first and formost our God, my parents, my friends, and our beautiful church.

Enough about me! How about a little update on our team in general. To tell you guys the truth, Our team is struggling a little bit to love each other, but WE KNOW our God's grace is enough to cover all of our sins. We are continuing to rebuke and love each other by looking over each other's sins. We humbly and urgently ask you for your continual prayer for our unity as a missions team. We will be starting our second and final week of english camp tommorrow and we are all very excited. All of our members are working hard to prep and be ready to teach these children.

Our park and soccer field/running track is really helping to ease our stress levels and give us endorphins to blow of some steam for a lack of a better term. Thank God for providing us such a nice place to work out and fellowships with one another! We are all thankful for that place.


Some prayer requests we have for you guys:

1. Our unity as a group and as representatives of our church back home and God to have attitudes and actions that reflect God and strive for his character.

2. Pray for Andy and Alice as they take up the mantle to lead us to give them patience, Christ's love, and wisdom.

3. Pray for the children, parents, and the church members here. (everything= their faith, love for God, their evangelical heart for Japan)

4. My sister's leg, It has gotten better thanks to God and your powerful prayers. We ask that you continue to pray for a full healing

5. We ask that you pray for Pastor Young, for his energy and recuperation from an arduous journey back to the states. Pray for his health but more importantly for his love for our God so that he can continue to love and serve us back home with vigor and strength.

Thank you so much for reading and prayers

we love you guys!

your brother sam

p.s

please do comment and say hi so that we may be encouraged by you guys. thank you.

Greetings Earthlings!

Hello brothers and sisters!!

This is I, Joanna Choi. Some of you are probably like, who is this girl? hah. :]
I attend bible study at Jae-il church on fridays so that is how I was given the opportunity to go on this mission trip. So hopefully in the future, I would love to talk to you guys in person about my experience in Japan.

Back to the missions.

Today was a day of rest from the summer camp which resulted in a day of exploring. It was quite fun and intense for the group. Of course it was physically tiring because we walked everywhere today but I saw it more as an adventure and somewhat memorable.

We went to the Menji temple and explored Harajuku today!

For those who do not know, Menji is one of the biggest temples in Japan and worldwide tourist attraction.

Personally, this temple was an awakening for me. It absolutely shook me to the core. I was pretty amazed and shocked by the environment and the people's efforts there. This is where God showed me the heart of Japan and how far away they had fallen. I experienced the spiritual culture to the fullness. As we entered the temple, we were greeted by a huge gate and a long path covered with scenery on the way to the temple. It was beautiful seeing God's creation and experiencing the surrounding natural beauty. As we entered the courts of the temple, it was filled with tourists and of course the Japanese. The part that troubled me was the area where thousands of people wrote their prayers and also where they prayed to their "god." As the group explored the premises, I was able to read a handful of prayers. These prayers are written on wooden blocks and were promised to be answered by this "god." A prayer block costs approximately five dollars. It was burdensome to see how many blocks filled the walls. It was heartbreaking to see how many people endlessly poured their hope and faith upon this fake idol. The fact that they had to purchase something in order for their prayers to be heard was ridiculous, disturbing. Prayer is a direct communication we have with God and is not something worth of monetary amount for it is priceless. We do not need money to talk to God, almost as if there is a toll we need to pay in order to communicate with our Father. But of course, these people did not know that. These people were the lost, the desperate, the broken.

These people were looking to the counterfeit image of God rather than the real heavenly Father.

We as humans all have an inner instinct that there is something greater out there. For us as Christians, we have the truth, we have the solution and it is our joy to spread the Gospel.

For me, I was fighting an inner battle within myself. As I saw people drop in coins and than start to pray to this fake idol, I started to pray for them saying God, forgive them for they do not know. They are ignorant and foolish so have mercy on them, please. Show them grace, that endlessly flows from the cross. But then I struggled with the thought that what if they did know, but they were being prideful and did not want to surrender to Him?

So fellow brothers and sisters, I ask for all of us as a body of Christ to continually pray for God to break the pride, the selfishness, the insecurity of this nation. That instead of turning to the fake solutions, whether in false idols or materialism, they will seek the light, the truth. That they will see the freedom in the goodness of God and His light and not the artificial comfort in the darkness.

And as for me and the team, pray that we will trust in the sovereignty of God and know His will is ultimately greater than ours.

thanks for reading!!!
we shall update again soon!

peace out. Joanna.

Hey guys,

This is the first picture slideshow that we showed to the kids. Figured you'd like to see it. WORD.

Picture slide show day 1 from Nicholas Lee on Vimeo.