God is great

So, I was actually able to get more sleep last night. I "slept in" to 7:45. I haven't even been using a alarm clock, because others' have been waking me up, but as the summer goes on, we'll see if I need to.
There was more orientation today. Got a bit more practice in a couple of areas I need to work on.
I lost my keitai(cellphone) somewhere between the outside of our building and meeting Sonya, one of the journeywomen, who was on my team today. P.J., Rebecca, and an iWitness guy were also on my team. Our stop is second to last of the stations that we are targeting this summer, so we decided to eat lunch before going. P.J. wanted to eat Indian curry, so he took us to a restaurant called Samrat near the station. It was very tasty! It was funny how it conformed to the Japanese norms- really tight space, machine to order your food, hot towel before lunch, and those tiny water cups- but it was still very Indian- Bollywood music, food, naans, etc. I had mutton masala- very good!

Going out to Chuo University was an adventure. We first went to Tachikawa Station and then we had to get on a small train line out into more country area. The smaller train was so cute and interesting- you can walk through the whole train because it's all open, it's really small, and it's high above the city. The area around Chuo is very beautiful and much more rural. I felt like I had room to breathe there.



We decided to split into teams of guys and girls. We girls had an interesting time. Chuo Uni is sooo big! It's basic design is concrete and the buildings just make it seem so unreal. I'm very glad they had English on their map, because our goal was to find the cafeteria and it was waaay on the other side from our stop. At first, we three just meandered around. We found the campus store- which had just about everything there. We scouted out the book store and the cafeteria. At the time, we were impressed, but come to find out there are four floors of cafeteria.
After that, we did some prayerwalking, making a round around the back of the university. There was a road lined with flower pots next to a beautiful park, and it was quite steep.
After that and a bit of meandering around, almost having to use Japanese toilets, we decided to go back to the book section of the university store to do some evangelism in stead of going back to the train station. At first, it was very hard. I was very nervous. The thing we were supposed to try to break the ice is to ask people to help us with our Japanese- something I really want, so that was cool. I looked at what I thought was the foreign language section to see if there was someone I could talk with- I found a guy- Aragata-san(?)- and we talked for a couple of minutes, about his hobbies, about why I wanted to talk to him. He didn't seem interested in the gospel, so after our awkward goodbyes, I wandered around the book section for a few more minutes. Rebecca found a book about cookies, complete with all the specs- weight included.

I then saw a girl browsing the adjacent section that looked like an English-Japanese section, so I decided to talk to her. Come to find out, she was Korean, majoring in Japanese Literature. She knew a bit of English, I Japanese. She said she was Christian and went to church, so I was stoked about that. I remembered that Sonya was Korean, so after a couple of minutes of talking with Haedan, I took her to her. After saying goodbye to the guy she was talking to, they started a really long conversation.
For a while I stood there with them, but after a while, I turned to the guy looking at the German books. He was from Saitamagawa(maybe), a district famous for a fireworks festival in September. Atheist. He was very polite, so I managed to get him through most of the Steps to Peace, but I could see that he really didn't believe or understand the concepts. He said that people don't get peace because a ton of people are reaching for the same goal- I could see that from someone from Tokyo. He said that Jesus stopped conflict. He said that religion was good for keeping people moral. Tonigawa Keisei(?) may have been his name. T. is studying law and hopes to be a diplomat- hence the languages(which also include Chinese). I was sad that he didn't want to hear any more or go to our Karaoke party, but maaybe I'll see him again.
While all of this was going on, Rebecca was talking to another guy and Sonya had finished talking with Haedan. I heard the most amazing thing ever- Haedan "had Jesus in heart." Haedan apparently counted herself a Christian because her parents were Presbyterian, but hadn't actually become a Christian herself. Sonya had explained how everyone has to make their own decisions, so H. decided to follow Jesus for real! Praise God! I'm so glad Sonya was there.
We decided to go eat dinner together to celebrate, and after going away from the cafeteria, H. led us back. The guys had already left a long time ago after not being able to reach us. She took us to ni kai- the second floor. Pictures! My first tonkatsu, green tea, rice, salad, grape fanta. I haven't had much of an appetite and neither has Rebecca, but Sonya said that that'll go away after a while.


After dinner, we all walked back to the station together. Haedan had to go the other way, so we split. I saw her in the other train- it looked to me for that split second like she was crying, so I hope that everything's okay. I hope that she really accepted Christ. Pray that she'll be reassured in her faith. It might be hard for her to tell her parents.
After getting lost on the small train, we went home without any more troubles, although it was a long ride home. I forgot it was Friday night. So many people at the Hachigo/Shibuya intersection. I can see that this summer will be very interesting.