Thank you to all who have been waiting patiently for this post about the Hokkaido mission trip!
It has been 3 years since I last went on a domestic mission trip, and since this might be my last chance before my term in Japan ends, I decided to grab it and go by faith even though the budget turned out to be two times more than what I had expected.
The original destination was Sendai, but due to some reasons, it became Hokkaido. It was an answered prayer cos I'd always wanted to return to the place to where God first brought me in 1997.
As I walked on the ground of Hokkaido University for the second time in my life, God reminded me of the various places on the campus that I had been to - the fountain near the engineering department where I met a 15-year-old Iranian girl 8 years ago ... she was waiting for her professor father to finish his class, and I took the chance to share God's love with her. This time round, it was my young partner Kaoru (Tokyo freshman student) who grabbed the opportunity to share the gospel with 2 Korean postgraduate students who were sitting on the steps of the engineering block. That day also happened to be a day of great sowing for both of us - we approached 29 people within 2 hours on the campus. Phew! : )
Kaoru was discouraged that no one came to Christ that afternoon inspite of our sowing efforts. I shared with her what I've learnt from my seniors in NUS - that some of us get to be the first link in that witnessing chain for a person who's listening to the gospel news, and sometimes we are the last link and we get to bring in the harvest. "What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe - AS THE LORD HAS ASSIGNED TO EACH HIS TASK ... So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grows. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be REWARDED according to his own labor." 1 CORINTHIANS 3: 5,7-8
Community living with 6 staff and stinters, and 6 students turned out to be a bigger challenge than I thought. It dawned on me that my capacity to be with people for extended periods is decreasing as I grow older. God helped me to be honest about my limits during the trip, which I would not have done so previously out of silly pride.
That said, it was a whole lot of fun being out in the countryside and seeing the blueness of the sky as far as the eye can see, and enjoying the freshness of the air (if you have lived in the city for a long time, you'll know the difference). I even took the liberty of having some scallops and squid (forbidden food because of my cholesterol level)! Who in their right mind would resist the freshest seafood one can find in the whole of Japan?!!
For those who like statistics:
No. of people approached - 182
No. of people who heard the gospel - 40
No. of people who prayed and received Christ - 1
Till the next post! またね！
