Some 22 years ago a young lady named Mihoko Hori was at this church and received Jesus as her Savior and was Baptised not only in water but by the Holy Spirit here. The Church hasn't changed much and the Savior is eternally the same but the people have change most of them. It was encouraging to see many of the faces from 20 years ago. I was a short term missionary in 1990 and lived in Japan for 3 months. This was the home base for then Life Ministries. Now, Life is Asian Access and they are a church planting ministry. But ICCS still had the De Le Cour's and Dee Wirz who wrote the ESL curriculum many of the missionaries are still using today to teach English using the Bible. Some CAJ faces were there and we also saw Mark and Rustuko hanging out there. It was fun to hang out and be apart of the services. I didn't get too many pictures as it would have been kind of rude. Anyway, they were joining the world wide movement with the day of prayer and the message and music corresponded to the theme. 
Mihoko was so thrilled to just sit and drink in the old memories. Kind of like a hippy going back to Costa Mesa after 20 years away. They sit in the pew (Now soft cushion chairs) and just say, "Yea, man I was sitting hear when Chuck said that one things and then the lights went on and I got it! Dude that was so way boss." They did talk like that. Mihoko didn't use boss or cool but there were some "Natsukashis." God has so blessed Mihoko's life with her parents being saved which is very rare in Japan and all the ministry and friends 
I remember coming here from Machida which was about an hour plus train ride. It would be during rush hour and I'd be carrying my bulky guitar. It was so much fun to get in and out of the trains with that guitar. I used to ride the Odakyu sen back into Shinjuku or was it Shibuya and then go the Yamanote Sen to Ikebukuro and then out the Seibu Sen to Kotesashi. There was a shorter way but I didn't know it until the end of my stay. ICCS is in need of a worship leader pray that God would raise up a gifted individual.
We had a great time of fellowship. We also rented a car to practice driving and that was a lot of fun too. More about that later. God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment