Of missions and volleyball

Hi all, Sarah here.

First off, as most of you know I am preparing to go on my first missions trip ever this summer.

I am so excited!! Although admittedly also somewhat nervous, since I'm not yet totally sure exactly what we'll be doing. Trusting in and looking forward to what the Lord has in store though!! I know that whatever happens, whether humanly good or bad, is ultimately for good as it says in Romans 8:28. Haha, I'm also learning 1 Peter 5:7 about being anxious for nothing. God has been really good to me though. Everything that I had concerns about so far have been useless worrying, so I really shouldn't be nervous. So, I'm working on that.

Information-ally wise, I have been given the privilege of going to Japan from June 17th to July 6th with other members of Grace Community Church (GCC) to minister in Osaka, Japan at Hamadera Bible Church (HBC). We plan on helping out HBC as much as we can along with ministering to college and high school age students in the area. Our goal is to be loving, yet bold instruments of the body of Christ sharing the amazingly awesome gospel message to the students we come in contact with that they might come to worship and follow Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour.

Secondly, I have several prayer requests that are given in no particular order.

• First, please pray for the Japanese students that their hearts may be open to us, to the gospel, to the church, but most of all to God, as we share with them. Less than 0.5% of Japan are Christians, and so few have heard the gospel or even know that God is the Creator of all things.

• Second, please pray for our team of 8 that we will be bold in sharing the gospel, humble, loving and gracious in all our actions, open with our lives and live utmostly for the glory and worship of God.

• Third, please pray for HBC that they will be strengthened and encouraged in the Lord during our time there. And that we will be a means of blessing and help to HBC.

• Fourth, pray for our health and safety as we go there and come back, Lord willing. Also please pray that we'll be able to get everything we need to get done in a timely manner.

• Fifth, is a personal request. Please pray that I have the right heart attitude of praise, thankfulness, joy and worship as I go. I want people to see Christ in me and not me. I really really don't want to be a bad witness. So please pray that the sin in my life will continue to be minimized and God's righteousness and holiness will be maximized. I want to truly love and care for the people as Jesus does, and I know that's going to be hard to do with people, many of whom I've never even met before. Any sin they see in me, I hope is attributed to me alone and not in any way attributed to so defame the name of Christ.
  

• Sixth, please pray for Japan as a whole. Japan is so lost in darkness, she is lost in the shadows of Shinto Buddhism, trying to please "gods" that don't exist. Yet, she is one of those blessed countries to have the whole Bible translated into her language, when there are many people who don't even have a whole chapter in their own language. She also has the highest suicide rate for a country of her stature. So please pray that she will learn where true hope comes from, in Christ alone.

Thirdly, so far we have had four meetings to prepare for the trip and we still have so much to get done. We are getting things accomplished though! Yet, we still have much to do.

Fourthly, this past Saturday was the annual Crossroads Volleyball fund raiser for missions. Not only was it my first time participating in any volleyball tournament, it was also only the second time ever that I played volleyball. The first time being during one of our team meetings/team building exercises that consisted of volleyball practice. Interestingly enough however, I was a lot more sore from volleyball practice than I was from actually playing in the tournament. And I didn't get any little bruises on my arm this time. Yay! The cool thing for me though, was how encouraging my team was to me since I am quite non-athletic. Although, I used to be more athletic, when I was younger, much younger, now I'm just more of a "girly-girl".
Actually, volleyball was pretty neat because I got to play with a fellow former debater who I had no idea knew anyone on my team. It's interesting how "small" the world is at times. God is really neat how He works things out like that.

Fifth, thanks so much for reading!! I deeply appreciate it and your prayers!! I hope to keep up with this blog as we prepare!

Keep on praising Him!
Sarah