Have you "googled" lately?

Last week an old friend from high school found me through Google. I was curious just what came up when my name was put in the search box and I came up with the following website. It's pretty evident what I'm passionate about, isn't it!?

www.asianaccess.org/headlines/index.html

Check it out! Look at the bottom, left-hand side of the page.

the call from Japan

A couple of nights ago I got a call from Okinawa, Japan. Mike Wilson who is a career missionary there with Asian Access called me to encourage me and to give me an update of what's happening. I'm compelled more than ever to be there!

Asian Access helps Japanese pastors and churches plant new Japanese churches by using a "reproduction" strategy. Without going into all the details, churches in a region are put together in "Networks." Recently 7 pastors in Okinawa met with Asian Access missionaries to say that they were ready to plant new churches of their own!!! This is the official beginning of the Okinawa Network II. Mike also told me that there are only 2 missionary units available at this point to help those 7 pastors. Japan needs missionaries!! There are some amazing stories of the Faithful in Japan rising up, but they need help.

Something else that is compelling me is from the Joshua Project ministry. This is a ministry dedicated to praying for the salvation of the world. They have a lot of information on their website, lots of numbers and stats that make my head spin. BUT, what I did take away from a quick perusal is this:

Japan is the highest populated nation with the most unreached people in the world!!!

Here's the link if you want to take a look yourself:
http://www.joshuaproject.net/unreached.php

Even when I have a discouraging day of learning the Japanese language, I can not ignore this call!

Spirited Away

In an attempt to experience some Japanese culture last weekend, I watched a couple of Japanese movies. Spirited Away is an anime movie (Japanese animation) written and directed by a pretty famous Japanese man named Miyazaki. I thought is was great! The main character is a little girl that finds herself in a new world of spirits that come to a bath house run by a scrooge of a woman. Along the way she makes friends that help her to return back to her world and to free her parents from a curse that has turned them into pigs. One scene that I thought was particularly intriguing involved a spirit. This gentle and helpful spirit came to the bathhouse and somehow became greedy and cruel. It began eating everything in sight--including some of the "people" there. Despite the spirit's disagreeable behavior, the little girl attends to him and explains that something in this place is making him bad. All of this "bad" stuff ends up being purged (you can guess what that means) as he leaves the place and returns to his original form.

It made me think of the sin in my life--how greedy and gluttonous I can be--taking in things that I think I need that are harming me. And how I must purge them from my life and leave those things behind me as I walk away from what is dragging me down. Jesus makes us New Creatures, doesn't he?

Check out the movie if you are curious. Maybe you'll get something out of it too. Enjoy!