Jordan's Joyful Journeys: International Exchange Day!

Saturday

Sorry I'm jumping around a little bit in the account of our Mission Trip! On Saturday we split up into groups and handed out church flyers and flyers inviting kids to the International Day and the Summer Splash. It was hot and humid so we were sweaty, but overall had a good time!

Chelsea, Jena, and Kayla handing out flyers in Otsukadai (a little neighborhood)

One of the skinny streets here.

Ready for lunch at the church!

Thankfully, we had chopstick lessons before we came! We certainly used those skills! Thank you, David for teaching us! :)

A delicious lunch and friendly fellowship!

The intersection near the church was flooded! Thankfully we did not get stuck out in the rain when we were distributing flyers!

Sunday

I did not get any pictures of our first Sunday because I was at the piano for both services, but it was a great day! The team did the skit on showing Christ-like love and sang a special. Pastor preached Jesus Christ and Mr. Winters translated into Japanese. I forgot to explain that we have two services on Sundays, the morning one is all Japanese, while the afternoon service is all English. The goal of the English service is to reach unsaved foreigners in the area.

Monday

Finally, we arrive at Monday's events! We all travelled to the Community Center in shifts. We thought the doors didn't open until 9:00am and we knew people would be arriving as soon as 9:15, so we were worried we wouldn't have enough time to set up, but, thanks to the Lord, the doors opened sooner, and we had plenty of time to get ready! That was a special blessing from God!

I don't remember the exact number, but I believe there were around 30 kids at the International Event! We played games with the kids and tried to teach them to sing Jesus Loves Me in English. There was no piano in the room, but thankfully, Mr. Winters guitar (which had been sitting in storage for a few years) was in working condition and was able to be tuned and played at the event. I played guitar and sang with the team our infamous "Smile Song" (It became much more well known to all of us after we sang it about 10 times throughout the course of the VBS and church services! Well, it's a good song, it went a long way, though I'm sure none of us are minding the break from it!). The Lord gave me the grace to share (and act out) the story of "The Good Samaritan" from the Bible. I tried to speak slowly, and use motions to help the children understand as much as possible, though it was in English. Also, I used pictures from a little book that illustrates a few Bible Stories. We also played with the parachute! That was a big hit! The kids really loved doing the mushroom! (I love doing it too!!)