Mt. Mitake Hike and Prep for Conference!

Hi Everyone! Lauren here :)

We all had a great nights' sleep and felt rested this morning! We had staff devotions with the missionaries, staff workers and Pastor Jonathan and his son Ben; speaker for the SEND conference, that starts on Monday. We love being here together and experiencing this new culture! The people are friendly and the camp is beautiful.

After breakfast we worked to setup each of our rooms for the kids programs (Preschool, Elementary and Teen). We are teaching the preschoolers and elementary kids this week about ways that we can Fully Rely On God or "FROG"; thru looking at the lives of Paul, Joseph, Peter, Ruth and David. The teens will be focused on the theme "Guard Your Heart".

During the afternoon, we took a cable car to Mt. Mitake Shrine and visited several stores and saw several other shrines devoted to the blessing of growing good crops. The hike was steep and was about 2 miles long. The walk took us on paths with huge cedars, beautiful hydrangea, and monuments that cities around Tokyo pay money to have near this shrine. It was beautiful. The girls on our trip got rice hats and chopsticks! The shrines were intricately designed with beautiful dragons, birds and prayer knots. At the bottom of the stairs to the shrine was a wash basin where Japanese people were to wash their hands to cleanse their hearts from sin before going to worship at the shrine. We were all reminded and thankful that God died once for all and that the cleansing of our hearts is done by the power of His blood, shed for everyone.

Tomorrow we are going to Jim and Angela's church In Saginuma with a luncheon afterwards and Linda is sharing her testimony with them. Please pray that God will give her courage and use her story to impact others. Please also pray for all the missionaries who will arrive tomorrow. We are looking forward to meeting their families and ministering to them while we're here!

More tomorrow.......