More on Sunday at Megumi Baptist

After worship on Sunday, we ate dinner with the church family. The food was delicious, including the special little offerings prepared just for us. I'm talking about octopus, which proved to be quite tasty. The people in the church didn't think I would be willing to eat octopus, so they all watched in disbelief as I picked some up with my chopsticks and ate it. Like I said, it's pretty good!

Soon Dale and the ladies left for the home of one of the church members. The ladies had planned to have a tea party after dressing Dale up in a kimono. Meanwhile, the men of the church sat with me, asking about my testimony and about our burden for Japan. As we interacted, one thing became clear. Like so many others we talked to, these men also have been beaten down by the situation in Japan. Don't get me wrong. They are good men. They love the Lord, and they certainly are being faithful in their service. But the work in so slow and so difficult that talk of something great happening for the Lord's work there is just that--only talk. I came away from this meeting with an even stronger determination to pray for the Lord to manifest his power in Japan. Japan is a difficult place for Christianity, but we cannot let it be said, or even thought, that any place in this wide world is too difficult for our Lord. The same power that brought Jesus back to life after his crucifixion is the power contained in the Gospel. And that power can do its work in Japan, as well as in any place on the earth.

This is all the more reason to pray for Japan and for the Lord to show the power of his exaltation there. In Acts 1, after Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to the apostles and to give them his power for ministry, the aspostles returned to Jerusalem and did two things: they prayed and they got themselves organized in order to be ready when the Lord's power broke out. Similarly, we need to pray and we need to get this future ministry to Japan organized so we can be ready too.