We woke up at 5:00 am. Mike Magee made the coffee as usual and we made fried rice for breakfast. We also had some fresh bananas and bread. Mercedes made a great welcome sign for the retreat and she was a blessing to us.
Pastor Kent gave a great message about being a leader. Leadership is about "being" and not necessarily "doing". Our love for the lord will define our ability to lead. If your heart is not right, then your leadership won't be either. A leader must be reliable. The men took in the message and we got back into small groups to talk some more and to pray for each other. Some of us gave testimonies. Brian's testimony was powerful, but if you want details, you need to ask Brian. I believe that the retreat truly impacted the lives of the Japanese men. They seem to be more open and trusting that we are truly their brothers in Christ. The retreat ended at 1:30 and we had some time to reflect and rest.
We went to dinner at an all you can eat Shabu shabu restaurant. I think the restaurant has banned Magee san from coming back. LOL. We made some new friends. Pastor Carey from Okinawa and Takahide and Ai Tanaka. The food was awesome and we later went for some soft serve (surprise surprise). The night came to an end with some of the church members practicing worship with our worship team. Truly a thing of beauty!
Women went to pray at a building site where a building will be constructed to be used for various ministries, bottom level will have a cafe, top level will have rentals to subsidize cost to run and maintain the building and the mid section will have conference rooms and dorms. Currently there is a sushi restaurant on the site, in God's time, which is always perfect this tenant will move and demo/construction can take place. Please continue to pray for the success of this project.
ReplyDeleteThe street that this site is on leads to a buddhist temple, my personal prayer is that the Holy Spirit will stop people in their tracks and instead of heading to the temple, will stop in and patronize the cafe and other business on that street only. As they do I pray they will be blessed for it.