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!