International Treasure Hunt:
Asia Outreach Phase
After growing and being trained for 3 months at the School of Worship in New Zealand, it was time to go out and bring the kingdom in Japan & Thailand!
Revival in Japan
Here you can see our team meeting for morning worship at our first location in Japan of Niseko with some of the local missionaries, and it was truly inspiring to see their zeal for the nation!! In fact, in this very prayer room, I had the honor of organizing a 12 hour BURN where I planned out the worship teams and the prayer points for each hour, and we truly dove DEEP into the heart of intercession and God’s heart for this nation!! Then as we went to other areas of Japan over the course of the 2 months there, we continued to see revival! At least 5 other YWAM teams had also sent groups to Japan so we kept meeting other missionaries all over the nation, and the few Japanese Christians that exist are truly people who are so fiery and passionate!! Another true source of revival in the nation was this group called Awakening Tokyo that does weekly street evangelism in the largest city in the world spreading the gospel, and we got the chance to join them!! Overall, God’s work in Japan is just getting started and surely the best is yet to come!!
Youth Rising Up
One of the most powerful things I witnessed in our time in Japan was the passion in the youth that are being raised here!! This photo features Greg on the left and his daughter Ari, and he met his wife Rachel in Hawaii but now they are long-term missionaries in Japan raising their 3 daughters and their son in this nation of Japan! It made me realize that such a powerful form of ministry can be beyond ourselves, and can be in investing in the younger generation and empowering them to make an impact, and it was so cool to see Rachel & Greg raising their kids in a Japanese context to share God’s love! Then on the other side here was a girl named Kokoro who was native Japanese and it’s very rare to find Japanese youth who are following Jesus, so she was a true gem to meet! Probably my favorite moment with Japanese youth though was when we went to Jesus Cafe in Osaka, the very first night there was a girl who was only a teenager leading the whole church in vibrant bubbly Japanese worship that sounded like an anime theme song but it was glorifying to the Lord haha. Truly I love seeing the new generation finding their song and expressing their whole hearts to Jesus!
Worship Shaking the Ground
One of the most profound things I’ve ever experienced in my life was when our team went to the shrine in Kyoto on New Year’s Day, and as we were prayer walking over this Shinto Shrine and singing the worship song “Tremble”… an EARTHQUAKE LITERALLY HAPPENED. It was INSANE. I don’t know if we caused it or if it was just wild timing lol but even just metaphorically speaking, as we ventured across Japan, our worship shifted atmospheres. We worshipped on streets in Niseko, Osaka, Yokohama, and Tokyo, and sometimes we saw really cool reactions from people and got to chat with them! Other times, we didn’t see anything necessarily, but we still faithfully came and sang and prayed, and that’s the thing about God, is when we stay persistent, it’s amazing the miraculous unexpected things we can see on the other side of our prayers!! This photo specifically shows my favorite God encounter we had one day when we worshipped on a Beach, and this man named Toshiki enjoyed our music so much that he ended up getting into a really long conversation with Jaimy & I about why God allows for bad things to happen and it was so powerful!
Fun Divine Appointments
Alongside our street worship sessions that shook atmospheres, we also had some pretty powerful moments just doing silly fun things throughout Japan as well!! Some examples included board game nights, sports with youth in the park, and even sharing the gospel in a Japanese Onsen haha. But my favorite fun divine appointment happened when we actually had an off day and Katie and I were in the train station on our way to visit a Pokemon Center, when all of a sudden this random guy asked us if we were Christians because he saw my backpack said “The Lord Remembers”! When we said yes, he actually told us he was also a YWAMer and was from France but just did a family DTS with his wife and kids in California that had it’s outreach in Japan as well! So somehow in the biggest city in the world where Christians are few and far between, in a train station on our day off, we ran into another YWAM family in the train station, and they were a family that was involved in 2 other huge places of interest for me being California and France!! It was INSANE. So we prayed together and blessed one another on our way, in awe of how God is capable of bringing His people even in the most bizarre of places!
Every Person Matters
Probably my favorite ministry day for our team over the course of our time in Japan was when we had the opportunity to go in and speak at this Japanese school! We couldn’t directly mention Jesus though because it was a public school, so instead we did other fun activities like sharing about our countries and the best part of all was we did a skit called “BING”! The BING skit was all about a machine where every part of the machine made a fancy noise but there is this one character called Bing who just makes a little bing noise. Everyone laughs at Bing and tells them they’re a loser because their part of the machine isn’t as cool, but then once Bing goes away, the whole machine breaks down! So everyone has to encourage Bing that even though her part felt small, it was still so important to the team!! Doing team ministry, it can be super easy to feel like that Bing character sometimes, because it can feel like your part doesn’t matter or isn’t important. Even just practically in life, so many kids and people don’t realize their voice matters. But doing this Bing skit was so heartfelt and powerful to show to these kids that no matter how small they feel, they are important! That’s God’s heart for them and for each one of us as well!
Family Centric Ministry
After finishing in Japan, I had the opportunity to visit my buddy AfroZach in Thailand who was working alongside Canaan Ministries, and the couple that runs this ministry is SO FAMILY ORIENTED!! They have adopted 10+ kids from various different villages and poor home situations and have given them a better life! In this photo you can see a few of them named Film and David with us on a day trip to a Waterfall! PJ & PA truly were amazing at making everyone feel like part of the family through the fun times and adventures we would have together, sometimes doing goofy things like seeing elephants or swim trips, but other times going to villages together that didn’t have access to churches for deep worship and messages of hope!! Truly it was so powerful to be there!
Full Circle Story
Thailand was also my final stop on this 9 month international journey, and it truly was a time where all my gifts and things I’d learned over the time in the nations came into play in one final she-bang! I taught English camps, I preached, I led worship, and we had a whole lot of fun on this final stretch! This photo shows 2 boys named Lae & Arak who are also among the kids that PA & PJ adopted and took in, and both of them got baptized while I was in Thailand and they were also both in my English camp!! I truly believe Canaan Ministries is going to continue to do amazing things, as are these 2 amazing boys, and I'‘m so glad I got finish my time in the nations with these incredible people in this incredible place! So my nations journey ended here, but as one story ended, another began as I went home… and even still, the best is yet to come! (:
Asia Outreach Phase Newsletter Archive
From my time in Japan until arriving home back to America, there were a total of 7 newsletters that finished up the International Treasure Hunt series! They were newsletters number #14-20 of the series and they cover my entire time in Japan, my graduation in New Zealand, my time in Thailand, and some stateside trips in Texas and Indiana! You can find each of them here at the links below!
Newsletters and Links
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