Japan Campus Crusade Meeting

Wow! So today was a pretty amazing! God has done some amazing things in our short time here in Japan. Today, I had the opportunity to speak at the Japan Campus Crusade meeting which they call the Immanuel Meeting. God definitely showed up from in the meeting, and I pray that many lives were touched – I know that I definitely was moved by the Holy Spirit at tonight’s meeting.

Today, I prepared for my message by fasting and praying for most of the day. It was an amazing time to get to spend some quiet time and wait on God. I remember just interceding on behalf of the Japanese students and for our team. As I have grown in my walk, I am beginning to see more clearly that the battle we are fighting is definitely not a physical one, but a spiritual one. We are fighting against the spiritual forces and principalities.

On a fleshly level, this was hard to accept because my mind works very logically and wants to have a systematic way of organizing information. However, I have realized that in preparing to speak the best way to prepare is to get on your hands and knees and seek God for wisdom and direction. I find that in preparing this way, I have a difficult time balancing between my heart in trusting God to give me the words to speak and worrying in my mind about the details and preparation.

Yet, in the end, I was able to pray and spend the day seeking God. During the end of my quiet time and spiritual preparation today, I just began to lift up praises and songs to God. As I sang, I could feel the Holy Spirit moving through my body. As I came in and lied on my bed, I could feel the Holy Spirit moving like electricity in my hands. I knew I needed to pray for someone. I was alone in my room, so I went outside to see if there was someone I could pray for. When I went outside, the first person I saw was my roommate Sam. I didn’t know what I should do, but I felt like God was telling me to pray for him.

So, I went up to him spontaneously and asked him if I could pray for him and if there were any special requests or any healings he needed. To my surprise, he told me that his eyes needed healing. One eye was nearsighted and the other was farsighted. He said his eyes had been bothering him for at least the past three weeks. So in faith, I asked the Holy Spirit to come, and I laid my hands on his eyes and prayed for him. I prayed for him the first time, and I asked him if his eyes were noticeably better. He said that they were in fact a little better, but still a little blurry. So I prayed for him again. After I prayed, I asked him to see again if there was a difference. He tested them for a while, and he came to the conclusion that God had indeed touched and healed his eyes. He said that as I prayed for him, he could feel the Holy Spirit moving in his body!

God is so good! He definitely wants to heal people both physically and spiritually. With this experience happening earlier in the day, I had confidence that God definitely was with me and would put the words in my mouth speak. This was such a reassurance because earlier in the morning I was having a hard time dealing with some mixed emotions after having kind of an awkward dream. Yet, after spending time waiting on God and interceding, I knew that God definitely was working and was answering my prayers.

At the Immanuel Meeting, I was able to share from the Bible and a little from my testimony. I spoke after my friend Sara gave her own story and powerful testimony. God definitely was working through her in speaking to people’s hearts and preparing them for a response. When it was my turn to speak, I wasn’t nervous, but I was a little worried about how I what I was going to talk about. It was really hard at first because I had to speak through an interpreter. I am very used to speaking really fast and getting really excited when I speak. But today, I had to really slow down and make sure that I had enough pauses in my speech to allow for interpretation. I had prayed and prepared my message for the past couple of days, but I still did not know exactly what I was going to say. In that moment, I just put my trust completely in God and allowed him to speak through me.

What came out from that point on was completely all from God. Like I said, I had an idea about what I was talking about, but I didn’t have a definite plan. But as I spoke, God spoke through me in a way that was flowing and coherent. I know that those were not my words because every time I had practiced or rehearsed in my head what I was going to say, none of it was like what came out of my mouth today.

I have never been so moved in my heart in giving a testimony or word. But as I spoke, I began to begin tearing up as I talked about the brokenness and pain of the Japanese students that God wanted to heal and take away. As I finished my message, I was able to give an invitation. I was advised by the Japanese staff not to have anyone raise their hands or stand up because there were first time guests, and it might be uncomfortable for them. So, I prayed and offered an invitation to the students by saying the sinner’s prayer. I initiated and let God handle the results. I’m not really sure how people responded. It’s hard to tell because we weren’t able to see tangibly who responded. But I know that in my heart, God had moved as my heart began breaking for the Japanese students.

During the worship, I just cried thinking about the pain and brokenness the students sitting there must experience day to day. I have never really cried after speaking or in thinking about the people. But I think today, I was able to get a just glimpse of the pain that God must feel towards the Japanese people. God wants to love and embrace the Japanese, and it must hurt so much that many of them are still lost and brokenhearted.

It has been such an amazing journey here in the past couple of weeks. Like I said in my previous journal entry, God has been surfacing a lot of insecurity and inconsistencies in my own life that need lots of working on. But at the same time, I see how God has been genuinely changing my heart. Today, I cried for the Japanese people really for one of the first times ever. I have never felt that pain to that extent before. But as I have been praying for God to break my heart for what breaks His, I was able to get just a small taste of what His heart must feel. I look back and see how my whole life and past experiences have been preparing me for that moment. The time that I spent fasting today and even the 40 days I fasted over the summer have all been a process in humbling my ego and will to God that I may know the love of God and make His love known.

I desire to know God’s presence and His love in my own life, so that I may be able to make that presence known to my generation and through them the generations to come. It’s hard to tell how many Japanese students were genuinely touched by today’s meeting. But I take it in faith that God planted fireseeds of revival on this Thursday night. I was able to have some conversations with some of the Japanese students who said they were “impressed” by today’s talk and events. I heard other stories of those who were profoundly impacted and others who still have questions. Regardless, I know that what happened tonight was not a result of my own wok or experience. God showed up in a mighty way and is continuing to completion the work he has started in many of the Japanese students lives.

On a lighter note, today as I was trying to get on the internet and blog, I was sitting outside by myself when a police car drove by. Now to give some context to this situation, we don’t have internet at our apartments, so basically what we do is sit outside in front of our gate and steal internet from our neighbors. So tonight, I was sitting alone outside the gate when the cop car drives by. The car goes passed me, and I was a little nervous because I knew I was stealing internet.

The next thing you know, the car stops and a police officer comes out and starts talking to me. There is a huge language barrier so we definitely can’t really understand each other. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was using my computer. He asked me what I was doing on my computer, and I told him I was using the internet. After many awkward exchanges of information two other officers came out of the car and came to talk to me. They asked me if I had a passport, how old I was, and what I was doing in Japan. The whole thing was pretty comical because the officers seemed kind of baffled and indecisive due to the language barrier. Eventually, as we trudged through the conversation they told me to go inside.

It was kind of just a funny event because I get to tell everyone I was interrogated by Japanese police officers. Of all the times, we have been outside trying to get internet, tonight was the night I got caught. I think it is kind of ironic because I was about to type up my story of today’s events and post it on my blog. But it was as I was experiencing opposition not only in a physical level from the police, but even more so on a spiritual level. I think that Satan definitely knows what we are doing here in Japan, and he sees the breakthrough that has already begun and is even still to come. Satan is trying to do everything he can to try to stop us and discourage us from sharing our stories and successes.

But Satan cannot hold us down because we have the Lord and Savior on our side. We must continue to press in and seek God for direction and wisdom. The devil is definitely on the prowl, and now more than ever we must be careful to be spiritually ready and protected each time we go out.

Please continue to keep me and my team in your prayers as we walk in spiritual darkness day in and day out. God is using up to be beacons of light in Japan, and it is only a matter of time when the presence of God is going break out full scale.

God, we thank you that you are alive and moving in the hearts of your people here in Japan. We thank you that you have been working here and have been raising up and preparing labors to reap an abundant harvest. Lord, we pray that you will continue to raise up an army of Japanese students who will be fearless for you. Use our time her to encourage and empower students to rise up and take their place in writing history. Your will be done in our lives father. We want to make your name famous and be the generation that brings the gospel to the ends of the world for you.