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Here we are having arrived safely at Oita airport we picked up our bags and got ready to begin our adventure in Oita city.  Meanwhile Jose went to the car rental desk to check on on our rental vehicle.  Soon we were whisked away in a shuttle bus to the site where we picked up our nice little car.

It took us awhile to figure out  he navi but soon we had it squared away, loaded our bags and were on our way to the church.

I quickly settled in my new role as a co-pilot while Jose drove us to the church where we will be staying during our time here in Oita.  As we entered Beppu, where the church is located, Jose had us as a team pray for the area,  this proved to be a good beginning of our time of learning and praying for this city.  At the church we met Mr. and Mrs. Kim, the pastors, Mrs. Kim the associate pastor and Mr. Kim a voulunteer from Saipan.

These very nice people showed us our rooms then took all of us out for sushi.  Being very Asian we split up into a ladies table and a non ladies table.

Not too sure how the ladies fared but here is a picture of the junior leaders accomplishments.  Although the younger Kim seems to be collapsing under the weight of all the sushi he ate.

Then there were the senior leaders.  I think we ate our far share of the meal and represented ourselves rather well.

After church on Sunday Rhonda and I headed to Narita airport and spent the night at the Narita View hotel, where we enjoyed a nice buffet meal and a quite evening together.

This was the view from the Narita View hotel.  We stayed there because I have the privilege of joining the very first  vision trip to the historic city of Oita, with a view of sending a long term team there in the future.

Having eaten a nice breakfast at the hotel, Rhonda and I headed over to terminal three, where all the discount airlines fly from and met Tim, Julianne and Ellie at the check in lines.

Having sucessfully checked in we were officially prayed out by Rhonda ( sorry Tim, somehow, I left you out of that picture but you all get to see Jose, our awesome team leader)

 

Last Sunday as I was walking to Daikanyama station from our church, I saw a man wearing a T-shirt with the words “waiting for the waves”  I sure wish that I had taken a picture at the time.

This really struck me.  On the one hand I have my T-shirt with the promise I hold in my heart saying “The waves will never stop coming”.  Now here is this Japanese gentleman declaring that he is waiting for the waves to come.

This month on the 26th we will commission Gary along with his wife, Naoko, their son Kai, and fellow team members as a team to pioneer our new YWAM work in Tohoku!!!!

The beauty of this is that they will not be moving up as a team but going in waves – Gary, Naoko and Kai in August,  Tom and Rosa in October, another couple next year and two others are in the process of applying to their team.  They will be gong up in waves and now I have the assurance that the Japanese are ready and waiting for these waves of precious people to come.

I certainly had none of this in my mind when I first saw that T-shirt hanging  up in the used clothing store back in Shinagawa all those years ago.

When Loren Cunningham founded Youth With A Mission. -YWAM-  back in the 1960’s, he had a vision of waves crashing onto the shorelines of many countries.  These waves became young people bringing the love of Jesus to every nation.  This story is told in his book, “Is that really you God?”So I wanted to be able to wear the T shirt as a statement of my faith, that waves of young people would keep coming to Japan to bring the love of Jesus.  We have seen a large number of them come though our school during the past several years.

This was eary in 2011 and as many of you know that year we had a major earthquake and resulting tidal wave that devastated the Tohoku region of Japan.  I was involed in leading many relief trips up to the Tohoku area but for obvious reasons did not  choose to display this statement of my faith on those trips.

This is picture of our fourth team and it was an amazing group of people.  On the left is David our Base leader, then a team of three from Kona in Hawaii, two awesome young guys from Tokyo Baptist Church, Derick, right in the middle, a key leader on our staff, me – not wearing the T-shirt and finally Gary a new staff member from England with his fiancee Naoko.

There  is quite a story that goes with this T-shirt .  A long time ago when Rhonda and I were living in the Shinagawa section of Tokyo city, we took time to prayer walk around our  neighbourhood, seeing what we could learn about the area we lived in.   Each time we went out to pray we also discovered a new coffee shop to relax in and reflect on our time.

On one of the prayer walks we passed by a used clothing store and hanging outside in the front was this T-shirt.  I knew right away that I wanted to buy that shirt.  Not because of my experiences or passion for surfing.  – one little known fact about me is that I went surfing  on the famous Bondai beach near Sydney.  I’m happy to say that I never fell off of my surf board but then again, I never got to stand up on it either.

I went back to the store a couple of days later fully intending to buy the T-shirt.  However when I got to the store I could not see it.   I entered and looked around and eventually was able to find this T-shirt and buy it.   Probably the most I have spent on a T-shirt in a very, very long time.

 

 

After completing our prayer assignments, we took time to enjoy the beauty of the area.

Some very nice waterfalls.  Must be time for selfies.

Got to love those glasses.

All in all the Ayashi and surrounding area is very green and beautiful.  I am looking forward to returning for many pastoral visits after the team moves up to this awesome place.

I was awed by the depth of colour in this flower.

 

 

 

The afternoon began with the long awaited visit to the onsen.  For the guys that meant Gary, David and me. It was a great time of relaxing and getting to know each other better and soaking in some kind of chemically enriched water.

While we were in the onsen, this bright young university student came in and sat next to me.  We had a great conversation and I met him again in the park adjoining the onsen where he was with his mother.

I had a hard time at first believing that she was really old enough to actually be his mother.  His Japanese name was Joey; this was the first time I had met a young man with that name here in Japan.  Joey seemed quite interested in trying out his English so I introduced him to Mosese.

This evening we also went to a church in Sendai started by the FCBC church in Singapore.  We had visited this church  on one of our earlier Tohoku prayer trips so it was good to renew fellowship with them again.  The pastor was very kind and very happy that a YWAM team was coming to Sendai.  We discussed ways that we could work together with him and his church in the future.

Here is Gary with one of the church members whose connection to YWAM goes back to the Ome days.  She remembers welcoming the McDaniel family when they first came there many years ago.  Her family went to Grace community church along with Sakura and Satsuki Smith.

This is the Baptist Bible college where we have been staying every night.  I think this is about the third time  that I have stayed at this facility, either on a previous Tohoku vision trip or on visits to Tohoku after the tsunami.

Today Alisa, who lives in Miyagi and was a student on our second bilingual DTS, came to join us and be our tour guide for the day.

We drove to this temple which is very close to an impressive waterfall.  It turned out to be a very big drop so we could not get down to the water.

Pretty flowers were everywhere.  Hope you like this one.

After parking and eating lunch we again split up.  This time Gary, David and I enjoyed a coffee at Starbucks, then Gary and I moved on to the 31st floor of a building at the station that had an observatory.  From this vantage point one can see all the way to the coast and somewhere in there is the Rakuten stadium.

Somehow the 31st floor observatory was deemed to be a primary evacuation point in case of earthquakes and Tsunamis.  I guess that at least a tsunami would never reach that high.

I ended the day with loads of pretty flowers. Meanwhile Laura is moving ahead with her video report of this trip.  I am excited and looking forward to the final result.

 

It seems that tradition is proving to be an important part of this team.  Another thing we always do when visiting Sendai is to go to the site of the castle, pray over the city and take pictures of us at the statue of the samurai who founded the city.  Here I am pictured with Gary, the team leader.

It was rather hot that day; we split up into twos, spent about thirty minutes praying for the city of Sendai, and then gathered together again for our team photo.

Yet another tradition is to eat at Otoya near to Sendai station.  Here is Rosa, awesome woman of God who will be a member of the pioneer team.  We amazingly meet two Christian ladies at the restaurant from the church we would be attending on Saturday evening.

Oh yeah!  I got to eat, too!!!

Here is my flower for the morning!