Our outreach was INSANE!!! and by that, we mean that it was totally great! We had two locations to go and serve at. So, the combined team of 20 people broke up, and went the two different ways. In our original plan, we were all going to go to a place located in a (destroyed) park, and through the Lord, we were able to also go to a school that was turned into an evacuation center. At the original site, we set up our "store" by laying out large, blue tarps on the ground. This is where we distributed relief items such as clothing, towels, diapers, and shoes. Each person could take two items, which were a gift to them from God through us. We each were placed on different teams. Ron was on the worship team and he praised the Lord four hours straight! During that time, he shared the Gospel twice, which was translated by Kamakura Pastor Jack Bell. At one point during the worship, the earth shook as an earthquake occurred. Ron tied the shaking into a truth that they already knew well; we do not have a guarantee that tomorrow exists for anyone. The Lord God Almighty is Lord even of our very next breath. Ben, Herb, and Tanya worked with Pastor Jack to distribute the relief items in the store. We also gave a Japanese Bible and a children's Bible book to each person in line at the store. The people started lining up before the appointed start time, and the line stretched back for a very long way. Before the outreach ended, we had given out several hundred Bibles and all of our relief items in the store. Kelli and Herb (Herb had multiple duties) were helping with the food. We had two big charcoal grills that we fired up. We had picked up 285 pounds (130 kilograms) of meat at the grocery store for both sites. We just barely had enough food! We had roughly 10 pounds left. It was hard work cooking over the huge charcoal grills. Tanya was doing evangelism and was handing out bouncing balls and toys to the children. The kids loved them! Then Tanya started to get sick due to her allergies. There was a backhoe working close by that was kicking up dust with it's work. As she got worse, it was decided that she should move to the other site at the evac center. So, both Tanya and Ben went over to help the team at the other site. The team there was overwhelmed with work. They were working in a tent and they were short-handed and struggling with the smoke of the grills. Tanya was having trouble standing, so she had to remain seated. This was (looking back) how the Lord was going to use her. She started up a conversation with a Japanese woman who had been deeply affected by the disaster. Through Tanya and two other members of the team, the woman was touched by the love of Christ through us. She prayed with Tanya and the others, and a seed was deeply planted in fertile soil. Her contact information was taken and the local Christians will follow up as they continue to do outreaches in Ishinomaki. We served about 860 people total, and it was amazing to see God use 20 people to serve that many people.
The outreach was a huge successes. People came to the Lord, including someone that the local Christians were ministering to. A man stayed until after the outreach was over and told us that he had heard that Christians were coming to do a BBQ. He said that he would not turn his back to us and walk away while we were still working. He said that he had seen all the work that the Christians had done, and he was deeply touched. There are sooo many stories like these, all which happened in the one night at the two sites. It was awesome to see the Lord working so powerfully. Praise the Lord Jesus for what He did!
Please pray for the people that were affected by the Gospel. Praise the Lord Jesus!!!
Ron, Herb, Tanya, Kelli, and Ben
No comments:
Post a Comment