Our God is in control.

Hey everybody,

Today was very good. Very very good. We went and met our team in Asakusa where the temples are located and we all went through it once so that they could all get used to it and look around and take the pictures that they wanted. After doing that we had some debrief about how they felt and they we went to lunch. Then we came back to the temples for prayer walking. We encouraged them to pray using Bible verses and listening to worship songs. So they all dispersed to get into their Bible and pray for the temples. That was the third time for me to go to the temples, and it still hurts to see the people praying to a fake god. I learned this time that one of the huge 5 layered building supposedly contains a portion of buddha's ashes. So buddha's dead. How can these people believe in a god who is DEAD while the living God of the Bible is waiting for them to call out to him. It just breaks my heart. Also, while being at the temple I felt very uneasy about something: Why is God allowing all of this devil worship and idolatry continue? Why is he letting these temples be used to worship something other than him. As soon as I thought that God showed me in John 14 his answer. John 14: 1 says "Do not let your hearts be troubled. TRUST IN GOD." This reminded me that God IS in control. And he is only allowing this to take place because somehow he will receive the glory from it. Somehow in some crazy way he is using this idolatry worship to be transformed into his glory. And we can't be troubled or uncertain that his plan isn't going to work. God isn't worried, he has everything taken care of. And that just comforted me soo much.

After the temples we showed the team home, then went home to clean and get ready for fellowship. In the cave we all gathered in the living room and we had a time of worship and Jeff gave a message. That was a really good time. Then we were assigned our accountability partners to have accountability every wednesday night at 9. And my partner was M. And that is such a God thing because I feel like she is the only person that I haven't really been able to connnect with or get to know very well. So God thought this would be a great opportunity, and that is so cool! So we had accountability time at a cafe and it was soooo good. She encouraged me so much and we both opened up to each other the way I need to be more often. I'm so excited to keep that going.

Tomorrow we will be doing distribution and 5me. Please pray that the hands that we distribute to will be interested and curious in what we give them. Pray that God will bring us divine appointments during 5me and that we will be able to share his story and make some lifelong friends with the Japanese.

Love you guys, talk to you later.