Japan?

Three months ago I went to a big YWAM Scandinavia conference in Sweden, there I learned about the need in Asia for missionaries, when I heard that many had never heard the name of Jesus Christ, my heart was pulled. A couple weeks after we had a teacher, David McDaniel, who is a missionary in Japan, he informed me that out of the 127 million people living there 1% are Christian. After that I felt I should be a missionary in Japan, but my mind screamed "no!", so after a couple months of saying no, I stopped thinking about it and started to create other plans. However, Japan would still come up sometimes. Last week I was settled in to going to University of Alaska Fairbanks, running and studying a degree that I would be happy to learn all about for 4 years. So I sent an email to UAF asking if they had the degree I was hoping for.

When I showed up to the Workers Gathering in Hamar with all the other YWAMers of Norway, my plans started to change. As we gathered for different meetings I enjoyed learning and fellowship but on the second day they played a video about Asia, giving the facts of how desperately they need missionaries through simple statistics. Japan instantly came to my mind, I needed to go. Then I went to a session on being full time YWAM, it was a small group setting so I was able to talk to some long time YWAM missionaries and then I voiced my feeling of calling to Japan there but I still wanted to go to UAF, really bad. Being home in Alaska sounded really good, over Christmas break I started to realize all the things I miss about home and even just America. I miss my family and friends but also things I never thought I would miss, like being able to eavesdrop on people conversations and talk to little kids, or driving my little car and finding all the things I want in the store. All of these things that I was really missing I was no going to be able to find in Japan.

I went to the prayer room here and started praying while I wrote and drew, the paper says "me in Japan, Tokyo". I was simply opening up the possibility again and God really met me there and I decide to just start taking steps toward Japan. Then I made a check list: Pray, Email, and Look at Plane Tickets.

I sat down and wrote an email to David to let him know I was considering it and see what he thought and hear a little about what was going on there. There was an email from UAF saying to re-email my admission councilor because she was out of the office till the next day, so I resent an email to UAF asking if they had the degree I wanted. Then I kept praying and went on with my day and slept soundly.

Yesterday, when I checked my email I had 2 emails, one saying that UAF had no such degree and one from David telling me that he was excited to hear that I was interested and that when he met me he thought I would be a blessing in Tokyo. I took this as a really great confirmation.

So now I have decided to continue praying about it. And would ask you to pray for me also, this is a really big decision, to go into full time mission at 19.

I am not committed on paper yet or anything like that, but I am committed to push toward this until I can't push any further.

Oh and I didn't realize how close Japan is to Alaska! Way less for than Norway.

A little about what I would be doing: for 6 months I would be staffing at a DTS (like a school similar to mine except with an emphasis in evangelism instead of Art) and then the other 6 months I would be focused on my own mission work in Japan. This would be a 2 to 2 1/2 year commitment.

That is what is up with me right now. I think I could talk about this for hours but I am exhausted of writing...

mk... pray pray pray.

I am thinking it would be cool for different people to pray with me about this each day of the week, so if you would like a certain day just leave a comment on here I will get it all sorted out.