No Matter What

In this moment, all my wealth

I need you

In this moment, perfect health

I need you

It seems so easy when I have it all

It feels so simple with the world on call

But God if I need to choose

Having the world or knowing You

No matter my fame

No matter my name

Your cross is what I'm clinging to

Strip away all that binds my heart

Chains be gone, bring a spark

To light the emptiness with faith

No self left, love take its place

In this moment, breaking apart

I need you

In this moment, hope fading dark

I need you

It's not easy when You feel so far

It's so hard when I'm full of scars

So God when I have to choose

Giving up or pursuing You

No matter my pain

No matter my shame

Your cross is all I'm clinging to

Strip away all that binds my heart

Chains be gone, bring a spark

To light the emptiness with faith

No self left, love take its place

God I believe

You've set me free

Death has no hold over me

I stand complete

Your Spirit in me

Jesus Christ is my victory

So God when I have to choose

Giving up or pursuing You

Help me always see

You are for me

And your cross is all I’m clinging to

Recap #2--ICUHS BBQ!!

Wow—it’s been so long already since my last recap! Haha. I suppose even in America, with my laptop at my disposal and everything it’s still tough for me to get motivated to keep a blog going. But here we go, finally, recap #2!

So, back to ICUHS, on Friday at the end of our 3^rd week of outreach in Japan we held a Barbeque for the ICUHS students. After a week of getting to go into classrooms, sharing testimonies, and getting to know students, we planned this barbeque as a fun event to let students hang out with us in a different setting from what we normally did. 

Everything was done very last minute in typical Cru fashion, and yet God really worked out all the little details for us. To list a few examples; June is Japan’s rainy season, so many days we had poor or rainy weather, yet on this day we had perfect sunshine and warmth. It was a school holiday and many students had already planned other activities so we didn’t know how many students would show up—at least 22 students were there! The guys in our team had been having a harder time connecting with other high school dudes, so we were expecting only a few guys and yet almost as many guys came as girls! 

At the BBQ I got to be one of the two MC’s, which is a role I would never pick for myself, yet I enjoyed doing it. It also gave me an opportunity to use more Japanese, as I ended up being the one who translated for me and my partner MC. Of course, being at a park, we did all kinds of activities, including playing soccer, Frisbee, and football, a relay-race, an egg toss, a Japanese game we were taught by the students, freeze tag, and making Banana Boats for dessert! Throughout all of it, we were able to just be real with the students, and it was awesome to see friendships grow as we spent time just playing together. For me, this was probably one of the best parts of our trip, mainly because it gave me an opportunity to get some exercise while also getting to know other guys. Like the futsal group at Waseda, playing sports makes it really natural and easy for me to get to know and become friends with people. 

By the end of the time, we were all great friends, and it was sad knowing that in just another week or so we wouldn’t be able to hang out with them anymore. However, it was such a blessing to see those friendships grow, and to be able to show them the love of Jesus, just by being with them and having fun with them. The next Wednesday we had our usual “Let’s Talk” time during their lunch period, and probably about 40 students showed up, including all of the guys who had come to the BBQ! Praise God! It was further proof that those friendships we had made and valued were real and valuable to the students as well.

(If you’re one of the students in Japan and reading this I hope you are doing well! Can’t wait till the day I’m back in Japan and we can meet up again!)

Alright, I’ll wrap things up there for now! Hopefully it won’t take me another two weeks or so till I post again, but let’s be honest—it very well might. Haha!

God bless! 

Japan Memory/Recap #1

Hello everyone! Sorry, once again, for the lack of updates about my trip! Definitely needed to take my own laptop with me. I will remember that for any future trips! 

So—instead of trying to catch you all up on everything, I've decided to just post a couple of my most memorable times/encounters from Japan, so that you can get detail on some of the things that happened. This will be the first of...well, one such update for now, and we will see how many I get to! :P

Alright, since I haven't written much about our time at Waseda, for this post I will explain some of what that looked like, and one of the friends I was able to make there. Here we go:

Waseda University is one of the top tier Universities in Japan. Located in Tokyo, about 40,000 students attend Waseda, and there are several different campuses across the Tokyo area. Our team focused on the main campus located at Waseda Station on the Tozai Subway Line. It took us about 30 minutes to get from our apartments to Waseda, and usually we would try to be there from 12pm until 5pm.

While there, all we would do was go up to random students, start conversations, and trust God to steer our talk toward spiritual topics and then, hopefully, whether in that first conversation or in a later one, to the gospel of Jesus. However, whether or not the gospel came up, we desired to simply befriend and be real with whoever we were able to meet.

So, one day, I was wandering the campus with my team leader Zack trying to find some guys that seemed like they might have time to talk. Zack noticed two guys, both sitting alone on different benches, and challenged me to go talk to one while he would go talk to the other. I agreed, went up to one of the guys, and started talking. 

What a conversation! My new friend and I talked that day for probably almost two hours (his English was really good, even though that was his 3rd language!). We met up another two times while I was there. The first time, he took me out to a noodle place that I had never tried before in Tokyo. After the lunch we got into some really good conversation, and God gave me the opportunity to share the good news with him. He was able to receive it well, and though he didn't believe, he asked some really great questions about my faith and Christianity in general. Please pray with me that he continues to seek and question what he believes in.


The second day we met up, my friend took me to play with his futsal circle. Two things to know about Japan here: first, circles are what we would call clubs in America, except almost every college student is in one, and they are taken much more seriously. Secondly, futsal is a type of soccer played on a smaller court, with fewer people and smaller goals, and it is very popular in Japan. So, I got to play futsal with a bunch of other students, and became friends with many of the guys there, including the leader of the circle. As a result, I got invited back to play with that circle a couple other times whilst in Japan. It was so much fun, and I am so thankful to have been able to meet that friend and then get invited to that futsal circle. I miss playing with them already! 


Alright! That is probably already much too long for just one story from Waseda, but hopefully that helped show a part of what was happening while we were there. Please keep praying with me for my friend who heard the gospel. I hope he will look back from time to time and remember that conversation, and I hope we can continue to be friends.


Thanks again for reading this blog, for bearing with my tardiness in posting, and for all the prayers and support that have gone towards my trip to Japan!

God bless!

Christianity week at ICU

Hello everyone!

Sorry again for the super slow posts! I realize now I should have taken my laptop--trying to write a blog while having to borrow a friends laptop is not easy. So here's another brief update!

This week has been super busy, but a lot of fun! We have mainly been helping out at ICU high school's Christianity Week.
ICU (International Christian University) high school, is really Christian in name only, and Japan's stat of about 1% Christians seems to apply here as well. The school does not actually teach Christianity, and teachers that are Christian (which are few) are not allowed to preach their faith. However, they still have one week every year called Christianity week, during which they hold seminars and classes more focused on the religion of Christianity.
This year, we were able to be a part of a cool opportunity to come and share our testimonies in some of the Christian classes, and then get to discuss and talk to the students in small groups!
On Monday, I had the opportunity to share my testimony with a class of freshman high school students. I believe it went well, and heard that at least some students were able to clearly see how my life was changed for the good after I came to fully trust in Jesus Christ as my Savior. Along with myself, 3 other members of our group have had a chance to share their testimonies, and a few have also had the chance to share their testimonies in the smaller group discussion times.
Also, on Wednesday, the group we are with called Let's Talk (run by Cru staff) was able to put on their own seminar featuring a Christian rap artist in Japan called Young Kirk and a popular Japanese female artist named Manami. They were able to both perform some of their songs as well as share their stories of how they came to faith in Christ and how that has impacted their music careers. It was a really awesome experience, and out of the 270 students that had to sign up for different seminars, at least 70 students chose to come to that!! We are praying that God really stirred some things up from that event.

Please pray for these seeds that have been planted. Pray that the enemy would not be able to snatch them away, but they the students would really begin to seek out this Jesus that they've heard can save them. Pray that we would have the opportunity to meet with some of the students again and get into deeper conversations with them. Also, pray for our day tomorrow, as we have another opportunity to share testimonies with a class and then discuss with them about it.

I'll leave off about there for now--hopefully I will have a chance to post about our times at Waseda University soon, but I felt like the ICU events were more exciting, and more current as from here on out we will be focusing more on our outreach at Waseda.

Thanks again for all the support and prayers. We greatly need them, and Japan greatly needs your prayers as well!

1st Update From Japan

Hello from Japan!

First off, thank you all so much for helping me get to be a part of this trip, and just covering my team and I with your prayers!

So a brief recap of what has happened so far:

1.     Arrived to Hope International University in California on the 21^st, where we had 3 days of solid training. Spent a lot of time listening to great speakers, interacting with and getting to know my team, and spending time in prayer and worship of God.

2.     We flew to California on May 24^th, arriving in Japan at around 7 pm on the 25^th. Unfortunately, our staff leaders on the Japan side messed up our arrival date, so no one was there to pick us up and take us to the apartments. However, we got a hold of one of the staff members and he was able to meet us at the station where are apartments are located. Also, luckily, I knew how to navigate the trains a little bit in Japan, so I was able to lead our team to the correct station. Praise God they already had our apartments ready for the 25^th, or we would have been staying who knows where that night!

3.     As of now, we just finished our 3^rd day of training here in Japan, learning about what we will be doing and getting a short testimony ready for sharing.

What will we be doing? I don’t know all the details yet, but I know that we will be spending a lot of time at Waseda University, and ICU (International Christian University) high school.
For the high school, there are already several events planned, so praise God for that! We will be getting to go into several different classroom settings and share our testimonies and have opportunities to befriend some students. Now, even though it’s called a Christian school, apparently, there are actually very, very few Christian students, so most of the students we meet will not know anything about Jesus Christ. They have also planned a concert event featuring a Christian rap artist called Young Kirk who is apparently fairly famous in Japan. Also, they are hoping to have us help them throw a barbeque for the students we befriend while we are there.
As far as the college goes, we still don’t really know much of what we will be doing, but I assume we will simply be going to the cafeteria to try to meet some students and start meaningful conversations with them.

Me time:

I’ve already seen God drawing me closer to Himself through this time. Between getting to know new people, working on my testimony, and being forced to spend time in the word and in prayer has just brought me to a place of dependence on His grace. Working on my testimony has been a really good experience for me, as it has forced me to look back on my life and I’ve been able to see and remember the numerous ways that God has blessed me and guided my path to lead me to where I am today. As we go through life, we also think that things just happen randomly, but I think that really, God has preordained every step, and that each part of our lives has purpose and meaning. We definitely don’t see it in the moment, but when we look back, we can see how every choice and every moment has changed our lives and caused us to end up on the path that we are on now. This actually gives me great joy and peace, because it means that there is really nothing to fear or worry about even when times seem hard. Yes, the pain is real, and yes the hurt is deep, but God hasn’t abandoned you or put you in that place just for spite. He uses hard times to teach and to mold us into people that can do great things. The me of 3 or 4 years ago would never have come on a mission trip to Japan. Yet since I went though so many ups and downs, tests and trials, I’ve been changed to the point where I am happy and excited to be here. I am praying fervently, that God would continue to give me a love for the Japanese people, and that He would use our team to bring Japanese students into His kingdom.

Praise God for His mercy and faithfulness. I praise God for each of you who have been a part of my life, even if the only interaction we had was that you read a letter of mine and felt compelled to support me on my journey. Thank you so much!

Please continue to pray for our time here, that we would be salt and light, and that we would be able to love the students we meet as Christ loved us. Pray that He would fill us with his Spirit, and that our words would speak to the hearts of the Japanese in ways that our usual empty words never would. Praise for divine appointments and awesome friendships, and for real fruit from this 5 weeks trip here in Tokyo.

Your brother in Christ,

Ben

Support Raising Update

Yes- I'm going back to Japan on a mission trip. This of course means that I need to raise support in order to make it there. For those of you that have already agreed to support me, I just wanted to thank you, and to let you know how that has been going. I am now just around halfway to my goal of $5,800. Thank you all so much for helping me get to this point! Please continue to check in to keep up with how things continue to go and keep the Japanese people in your prayers! 

Thoughts about support raising: I really don't enjoy support raising at all. It's difficult having to ask other people to support me financially so that I can go do something I want to do. Yet I can't make it to Japan on my own-- I need other people to help me get there. As I do my best to raise support anyway, I see the beauty of the church--the church that centers around Christ. I couldn't support myself, but God has placed all my supporters (you) in just the right place to be able to send me. It is a perfect illustration of what Paul talks about in I Corinthians saying, "Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.... If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.... If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you has a part of it." (I Corinthians 12: 14, 19-20, 26-27). 

I could never do this on my own. Only thanks to your prayers and support could I ever have the privilege of serving Christ in Japan. Whatever joys or griefs take place in Japan, you all will share in that. Any miracles witnessed, any saved souls, any new friends and relationships will all be thanks to you. 

So despite my dislike of asking people for help, I realize God is calling me to go, and God is calling you to send me. Thank you again for being faithful to God's calling in your life, and pray that I may continue to walk faithfully on the path God has set for me. 

Last Years Trip

These were my thoughts pretty soon after coming back from Japan. Read and remember their struggle.

Just got back from Japan and my head is still spinning from everything that happened, both inside of me and outside.

Let me tell you about Rikuzen Takata, one of the worst hit areas, and try to help you see my heart....

Imagine looking around you and the land is flat, except for piles and piles of rubbish, some stacked 20 feet high or more, and huge rows of cars that have been smashed in every way possible; there's piles of metal, even piles of car tires. It's not just a picture you're looking at in front of you--it's the same way 360 degrees around you--all just piles of junk. Those piles used to be a beautiful, thriving city, but you can't imagine it, because all you can see is trash. Now you look where a city once was and the only buildings left are a school building and a hospital, both destroyed up to the fourth floors, but still standing.

If you go look along the coast there's one green tree standing there--but if you look down the coast you'll see thousands of tree stumps and one other dead tree. There used to be 70,000 pine trees there. 70,000 trees that were put there to act as a buffer against tsunamis.... Only 1 tree is left.

Can you even imagine it?? I still have trouble believing it..

Now imagine going there to help. haha! What can one person do? You look around you and realize that it will take years and years to rebuild what once was there. You feel helpless, you feel like there's no point, you just want to go back home because all your efforts there will not help accomplish anything. The people are mostly all gone, either dead or staying at evacuation centers, or moved in with family in other parts of Japan. It's just the trash, and the workers, and the stink in the air.

Then imagine you get your job assignment: water the flowers.

WHAT?! There is so much to do, to clean, to sort out, and you are asked to water a struggling patch of sunflowers. But step back. Look around. How much life is out there? Not much. But there are these flowers; struggling to survive in an area so dead. Just like the people are struggling to make sense of it all, these flowers are struggling to grow.

Now imagine you are doing this tiny, meaningless (in terms of rebuilding) job and an elderly couple walks up to you. They begin to bow and say "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." Over and over. Then they tell you they used to live just a few houses down from where the new garden is. A house that they had lived in for almost all their life. It's gone. Nothing is left. Nothing-- but there are the flowers. And they see you working and they can say "Thank you".

What can you say in response to that? What can you do?! It just blows your mind! And all you want to do is everything you can!! But you can't do anything because the only tools you have are tools for flowering gardens. You can't comprehend their strength, and you admire their courage, and you're shocked by their humility to walk the road they used to live on, see the destruction, and still say "Thank you" to people they've never met doing something that won't physically help them at all. It breaks your heart.

But you keep working. You work because that is all you can do. You work because you want to give the elderly couple some hope. You want to let them know that--

Hey! I care. I can't comprehend how you must be feeling, but I am praying for you and I will help in what little ways I can. And not only do I care, but Jesus cares too, and He loves you more than I ever will be able to and more than you or I can understand.

Because sometimes, looking at the rubble, the trash, the destruction-- I can't understand. But I believe. I trust. Because when I look up from the wasteland, I see the mountains, covered with green trees, rising higher than any buildings man can make, more beautiful than anything man could design, and I remember my God is beautiful and powerful. I know He loves the Japanese, and I am confident that good will come out of this. That flowers will grow out of rubble. That hope will bloom out of a land flattened with despair.

I went and did what I could. Physically, I can't do anything from here for Japan. But I believe God can, and God will. So if you've managed to read this to the end, don't just yawn and click back to your home page. Pray with me. Pray that God will continue to work in Japan. Pray that the flowers will flourish, pray that the one tree will stay standing. But most importantly, pray that the Japanese people find hope in Jesus Christ, because He is the only one who makes beautiful things grow where it feels and looks like nothing can.

Back to Japan!

Hello everyone!

I just found out I will be going back to Japan this summer on a summer project with Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ)! I am super excited about it, and want you all to get excited about this too!

Last summer I went back to Japan thanks to many of you, but I did a poor job of keeping in touch and letting you all know what happened. This time, I'm hoping starting a blog will help me help you stay connected to what I'm up to overseas.

I'll update when I can, but for now, thanks for checking out my blog and I'll try to post some more things soon!