halfway there

the hope collective left yesterday after a fantastic service to close off their time here. feels slightly lonelier now that i know my aussie compatriots are back in sunnysummerybrisbane. haha BUT i am only halfway there so let's power on! God is still good! :)

so something that is fairly unusual about this church is that their time together on sundays go on forever! in my brisbane church we meet now at 9 and say we have lunch/brunch... we would have gather together for perhaps 6 hours maximum? in lighthouse. 1st service starts at 845 and people start streaming in at 730! (in fact, there are a few youths who stay over from saturday!) and then they have morning tea and bible study. 2nd service at 10. afterward, they have lunch altogether and they sit down and talk (read have fellowship)!... and talk... and some jam on the instruments available and some clean the church while some pray... and then they talk somemore.. and then it's time for dinner! and then more talking! its really amazing! i'm usually getting tired about 4pm. by 6 i'm like ready for bed. but then around 8pm after dinner the conversations usually become really interesting. perhaps because everyones guard's is down since they're all tired or perhaps its because by this time the group has waned till about 6-10. but yeah, if you can endure till the end, you usually are blessed with reallyreally fruitful and edifying conversation. :)

last week was another amazing week. thank you so much for praying! :)
it was jam packed with events (the lighthouse partnering with hope collective). tues was a gig in starbucks, wed the jazz/swing night which was a blast! thurs there was the 2 ways to live drama and finally hope sunday. there were so many people who came! for some (eg mr inoue) it was their first time to church in years or for others their first time ever to come to church!

theres one girl in particular that i was so encouraged by. her name is yas*. so remember i was saying how we braved the cold to busk and hand out fliers? so i handed one out to her. and i stopped to tell her alittle more about us and asked her to come (in broken japanese) for the jazz/swing night. she looked kind of shocked/embarrassed so i smiled awkwardly and stepped away to continue handing out fliers, praying silently that the whole morning doing this wouldn't have been for nothing! :) and then she came for the event at night! it's practically unheard of that one would come from receiving a flier. in fact for most the flier is glanced at and then chucked in the bin! but she came. alone! (so brave!) and we connected with her and very briefly introduced her to Jesus and also the rest of the church. We also got her contact and she was really eager to hang out again! how amazing hey! haha! i'm so glad!

class with the older professionals also went swimmingly. we started talking about differences between the east and west and our view on love, marriage and life in general so we never got to talk about justice and freedom. which was fine. :) we also talked about the greatest love and then we read the story of the lost son and i explained how God loves us and the extent to which he does and like they were like hmm... aahhh... eeehhhh! :) this week they want to talk about same sex marriages and want to know my view? kek! in another class we were talking about casinos and various vices and they wanted to know my view too? thing is, i think they take my view as 'THE christian view'? so please pray for wisdom. pray that what i say and how i say it will not be misunderstood and that Christ will be glorified always please.

also later on today i'm touching base with m* the chick i was sharing about before. and we're thinking of inviting her to this saturday's youth group! i'm teaching on saturday nights now tho so i don't know if i can go for youth? ah! but i'm sure God will work something out. :) so please continue to pray for an open and receptive heart on her part and that even as she compares religions that her mind and heart will be opened to see how indescribable and uncomparable Christ is! :)

thank you for praying and please continue also to pray for the land of Japan. Mario (a mate from the brisbane church) is also in Japan atm. he's in ishinomaki now doing renovative/construction work for the flood devastated houses so please also pray for him and his team. :)