Skills to pay the bills

All you who read my blog must be wondering why I haven't posted anything for a long time.That is because I was in Tokyo for 2 weeks doing Gospel Team. Gospel Team is a Hi-ba sponsored, 2 week mission outreach targeting High school students in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya and Shizuoka. Early each day, team members travel to different places to hand out tracts to Japanese High school students inviting them to evangelistic rallies called "Let's Be Friends" which are held later in the afternoon. These rallies are done in cooperation with local Japanese Hi-ba clubs. High school students on each Gospel Team help lead the meetings and do skits, sing songs and share our testimonies.
Our daily schedule during the 2 weeks was waking up at at least by 5 o'clock in the morning and driving to the place our team is doing a rally that day and hand out tracts in front of train stations and High schools from about 7:00 to 8:30. After that we have breakfast at McDonald or somewhere. Than we slept from 10:00 to 12:00 and had lunch. During the afternoon we practiced our skit and songs and have a time praying for the rally. Than right before the rally starts we do last minute tracting hoping to get people that are just standing around doing nothing to come to the rally. Than from 4:30 to 7:00 we do the rally. We play games, sing songs, do a skit, share a testimony and there also is a message clear enough for a new person to understand the Gospel and accept Jesus as their saviour. At the end we would break up into small groups and talk to the Japanese High schoolers about the message and what they thought about the rally and various things. After the rally we would walk the High schoolers to the station and say good bye. Than we had supper at a restaurant somewhere and drove back to the place we sleep. Every night we got to sleep by about 12:00.
Here is a picture of the people that came to one of the rallies.

During the small group time I was able to talk to some Christian High Schoolers who want to live out their faith and want to bring their friends to these rallies, but find it hard because their afraid of what people will think of them and scared of being rejected. So I was able to talk about my own experiences and encouraged them in any way I could. During GT I was able to learn how to start talking about spiritual things to totally new people who have never had Christian influence before. Through my team I learned how to work together and encourage each other.
Through GT I was able to make a lot of new friends so that was really good. I will meet a lot of my new friends when I go down to the Hi-ba camp in another 2 weeks time so that will be cool.

GT drew me closer to God in a great way, so thank you everyone who prayed for me.

My parents went to Kyushu for a week to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. When they came back we had a Kyushu report party and they showed us cool stuff and nice pictures. You can see them above. Aparently they saw a lot of waterfalls. The castle right above is Kumamoto Castle they said. By the pitures Kyushu looks like a really nice place. Hopefully I can get down there some time