Kicking off 2007 at Shalom!

Woohoo! It`s great to be back at my home church in Tokyo - Shinjuku Shalom. Ooossh, am looking forward to what God has in mind for the land of Japan in 2007.

And it`s different worshipping in Japanese.. all the familiar songs but with Japanese lyrics, not easy to sing but the powerpoint team puts up the romanji which is very helpful ;)

There was a `laying of hand` ceremony (按手式)　which i think is similar to an ordaining ceremony. Youth Pastor Shingo and his wife Hisae went forward to be blessed by Pastor Elmer and all the cell leaders went on stage to pray for both of them. I felt really excited to be part of this because I am sure this year God will use them mightily to reach out to the people in Japan! Hallelujah!

On Wednesday (17 Jan), I joined Kumi and the youths at Youth Wave, which is like a youth bible study conducted by Ps Shingo at the church office. Was a bit shy because I have not really used Japanese to interact with the youths before but i enjoyed the fellowship! It made me less homesick for my ministry at home and my spiritual family.

To my surprise, Ps Shingo handed out a booklet in the midst of the discussion, turned out that he is starting to teach School of Leaders Level 1 (Youth) that day. Cool bananas! Good old SOL1! I was attending it with June last year but i i didn`t manage to finish the whole 10 sessions. It took a while to get used to the notes in Japanese but it`s great and I felt very comforted. (I think God answered my prayer.. to continue to grow spiritually in Tokyo..ha, it`s all about willingness isn`t it?)

Anyway, the session ended with impromptu worship and a guy came at 10plus to play guitar for the worship, how on is that!!! Ps Shingo also made dinner for everyone and I can sense the love they have for one another.. thank God for each and everyone of them.. and Hisae-chan came afer work looking tired but still i see her catching up with the girls.

Dear God, let this be a year of victories for us, whether in Singapore or Japan! AMEN!