The Lord is at work in Japan. What an incredible opportunity to be here testifying to His glory. It has been a very busy couple of days… here is the recap for Monday:

In the morning we got up nice and early for breakfast and a team devotional time. Breakfast at our hotel is, well, different. I am quite convinced that the hotel intends an `international` breakfast, meaning comfortable for Americans and such. Ha ha ha. When is the last time you had Hot & Sour soup for breakfast coupled with cocktail weenies? I mean, seriously. After several days of those selections and rice I caved and went to the bakery down the road for a delicious sugary donut. Praise God. They sell coffee there – who knew that I would actually have to indicate that I want HOT coffee? Cold is just as common as hot here so that can mean confusion with the language barrier. After breakfast, we had our devotional. Patrick is a rock star as usual – leading the best devotionals ever. We studied Romans 9:1-5. After some prayer, we jumped on the train and went three stops to Toke.

J`s Cafe (Jesus) is held at a house church in Toke, which is just a neighborhood in Chiba. Megumi is the woman who lives there and she definitely remembered us from last year and gave me a big hug. We were able to beautifully orchestrate a full-on Texas themed party with taco salad and all at 10:30 in the morning. This is a major accomplishment given the very small area with which we had to work. Having a team of nine (The Fellowship of the Nine, as we are now calling ourselves) plus the 6 women who attended was tricky in the small living room, but somehow we managed to fit around two tables. Patrick led a short Bible study and the Courtney shared a powerful testimony about how she went from being an atheist to a Christian. If you don`t know her story, I highly recommend asking her over coffee someday. It is incredible. 4 of the women at the study are not Believers… Megumi said that they all really related with Courtney and that they were touched by her story. Be praying fort that.

After enjoying our second taco salad in less than 24 hours, we went back to the hotel and did our own thing for a few hours. It was nice to have a break. Several people took naps and 5 of us went to Chiba city and toured the area. My mission was to go to Starbucks and get an Azuki (red bean) Frappuccino. To my dismay and after looking up the words red and bean in the dictionary to describe to the barista, I was politely informed that they do not offer that anymore. I wanted to cry. I mean, that is the whole reason I came to Japan. Ha ha, just kidding. But I was fairly disappointed. Trust me – if you tasted it, you would feel the same way. Apparently it is seasonal. Bahumbug. (Or however you spell that.) Courtney, Paige, Debra, Lottie and I then decided to walk around the area. Conveniently, Lottie and I remembered quite a few details from last year so we did not get lost. We walked past the place with the conveyor belt sushi, which we are determined to go to before we leave. Do not worry – we will make sure to consume our own body weight in sushi. Someone will have to take each of us back to the hotel on a tractor trailer.

Later, we met 4 college students and 4 church staff for a trip into Tokyo. They wanted to take us to the Hard Rock Cafe. More American food. Fantastic. Just what we wanted. I am not bitter, I swear. We just have not had any Japanese food yet. It`s been 4 days. The good news is that we had some VERY sweet time interacting with the college students. I think we`ve really started to establish some good relationships with a few of them. After dinner the students, church staff, and Terry, David, Debra, and Courtney stayed in Tokyo for a while. I am sure that they had a blast… I have not yet seen them this morning so I am not sure what happened. The rest of us went back to the hotel for a good night`s rest.

Today (Tuesday) we are having lunch on campus with the students. It is raining though, so that might put a damper on our plans. I think we are finally going to get some Japanese food today for lunch and dinner! We are going to Karaoke in the evening… they love to do that and conveniently so do we!