Half way through week 2

So the today [wednesday] and the past 2 days were mostly spent at Waseda University. On Monday, I went sharing with fellow UCSB 'er, Ada. We talked with a couple people, but nothing super fruitful. On the bright side, Ada and I got to pray a bit and got to know each other better. But even more on the bright side, praise the Lord, because our new sister Ai [which means love in Japanese and Chinese], prayed to accept Christ into her life as her personal savior. Sarah and Stephanie met Ai on Monday, and apparently her grandfather had given her a bible, and she had been reading it and believed in God but didn't know how to have a relationship with God. So they told her how she could, and went through some verses with Ai showing her how. The thing that livened my heart was that Sarah and Steph told me that Ai thought she had to always pray out loud, so she got really excited when she heard that she could pray silently on the train and stuff. It was such a blessing to hear how God has worked in her life up to the point where she met Sarah and Steph. Tuesday was similar, I went sharing with Quinn, conversations weren't very fruitful, but we prayed a lot which was really nice. Quinn and I did a little exploring on campus and we went into two of these really modern, tall buildings; and just took the elevator to like the 12th floor, overlooked the campus and Tokyo, and just prayed for the city and gave praise and thanks to God. It was really refreshing for me, because I got to reflect on God's faithfulness, providence, and just grace.

What's been such a blessing on this trip so far is just building relationships with people on my team. Most of my team is from UCSB [6 people including me] and we have 2 people from UCLA and 1 from Ohio State and 1 from Henderson University [Arkansas]; but the thing is, I don't actually know anyone from UCSB that well. So I'm really looking forward to further developing relationships with my new friends.

One thing that I've been learning a lot so far this week is just about how we has a team should live together as a community, and not just any community but a biblical community. On Monday morning, we as a team talked about our strengths and weaknesses. It was good because as a team we got to see everyone's perspective on how the team was. We even addressed matters like how sometimes we individually may tease each other a little too much, where some people actually get hurt. So we as a team got to address different issues of conflict and resolution, which is awesome because how many times do you see matters of conflict not dealt with well in truth, love, and grace and ending in just pure bitterness?

On Tuesday morning at our team meeting we actually had a bible study on biblical community. We took a look at Philippians 2:1-11:

¹So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, ²complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I love the way C.S. Lewis puts humility... "humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less."

I think there is something powerful in living in the manner portrayed in the Philippians passage. And the crazy thing, its not like we have to try to live in this way, but it almost seems to become an effect a result when we fully let God's extension of grace into our lives. Like when I think about Jesus, the one who raised the dead, who shut up the morally righteous religious [pharisees], gave sight to the blind, and I think about the way he served the "sinners," the taxpayers, the adulteresses, the broken people, and the way he served me in my brokenness by humbling himself to point of death on the cross and in that conquering evil to give us a new righteous life because he loves us and desires us... man I can't help but desire to extend this love and grace to everyone else. Not because I feel the need to "pay back" God, but rather because I experience this love and grace and realize how awesome it is. The best thing is that this gospel, this good news is it is something everyone always needs, something my team needs to experience daily, and I need to experience daily. This is humbling, can you imagine a community that serves each other in way that puts others interest above their own? and not by trying to do it, but letting it overflow naturally by the love and grace of God?