The Korean church had covered us with their corporate prayers before we started our prayer meeting. Michael Karpf came over from Tokyo to join us in meeting, we were given the chance to share about the needs in Japan and the ministry of Heart4Japan. Phoebe and Tim Wan joined us in the meeting, we made it till 7am the next day.
The meeting was a combination of sharing of field needs, worship, scriptures and praying. Our prayers were in different languages including tongues. Guess I was the only one who pray in tongues that night, yet God is definitely amazing, and allow His Holy Spirit to tear down the walls between denominations.We had prayed for a certain things, including: the missionaries' need and corporation with local church; the suicides and homicides; sexual industry, elderly, quakes, ijime and school system. Few scriptures came to us: John 4: 1-38; Rev 7 :9-12
As approaching the end, Scott called us from California through skype and we prayed for each other, the Lord gave us a scripture through Scott's sharing: Romans 8: 18-25
I called Chauncey earlier before we started, and we believed that Brownwood, Calgary were praying before and after us at the stated time. I'll update more to the group by end of this week. I'm still waiting for the feedback from the other centers. :-) Several updates and notes had been posted by the participants in either Heart4Japan group wall, or the prayer meeting wall. Please feel free to look at it.
pic: (from left) Michael, Tim, Roseline, Phoebe
では、またよろしくお願いします。
1 comment:
FEEDBACKS FROM THOSE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE MEETING
Michael Karpf
September 12 at 11:59am
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It's been just a week since I flew to Hong Kong to attend the overnight prayer meeting. I remember how God gave me a Heart4Japan, and that's what brought me here. I've asked Him to restore to me that same Heart4Japan because He has the same Heart4Japan. I remember flying from Dallas to Osaka nearly 7 years ago, listening to Steve Green sing "People need the Lord," and praying for the cities and villages we flew over...do I still have that same Heart4Japan today?
And I've been so cold and lukewarm in my own prayer life. Do I have the same fervency to pray as the Korean's do?
Let's continue to pray for the Japanese...they are beautiful people but lost without Jesus. They are looking to their idols and other things to provide them only what Jesus can. And they face a Christless eternity. Just because we're finished with our prayer meeting, let's go our separate ways continuing to pray and regain God' Heart4Japan.
I am very thankful I made this trip and will have memories of it for a long time. I look forward to joining future overnight prayer meetings on Skype.
Cosmic Starbachs
September 13 at 1:40pm
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Well i sing praises for Roseline and all that she does for Japan and heart4japan. With her faithfulness and commitment to Japan, it could be felt all the way to the USA. I must say her tenacity and fervor for the LORD is unparalled comparatively to the so many mediocre Christians all around the world, who are thinking about their selfish dreams. KUDOS TO YOU ROSELINE!
As for me I tried to gather a few of my friends to join me in this spiritual battle and they all had conflicting schedules. So I had to go it alone. Sometimes we get caught up in daily lives we forget to do things for Jesus. I am reminded of the parable of the wedding feast. Matthew 22: 1-10 reads:
Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who have been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' But they paid no attention and went off - one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. "Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find. So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Well my friends could not make it but surprisingly, my other friend that wasn't a strong Christian who went to the buddhist church and who fallen out of the fold came by and surprised me. Instead of having a prayer meeting we just talked and talked about Japan in detail of what needs to be done to change Japan. We talked for 4 hours. I asked to do a goal setting exercise for short term and long term goals and prioritizing and helped to see what he can do for his future and he was very appreciative and then we naturally talked about the future of Japan. Then he had to leave but we had a great conversation and gave me ideas for myself and helped me envisioned what i had to do to help Japan. We need a balance of helping others and helping ourselves. It is natural to help ourselves first, but i see it as if we help others it turns out it helps us too.
Interestingly enough i was fasting so the prayer night schedule fit perfectly for me. As my friend left i started to pray for guidance. I was reminded by God that I need to first rather than pray that i needed to be right with others before being right with God.
Matthew 5:23-24 states
"Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift."
Even though it wasn't an offering, it was prayer, I realized that i needed to do the right thing. This was my first prayer night and it was late so I know next time to be right with others before offerings or prayer. So instead of praying for Japan i knew that so many of you already covered the many topics, I took it upon myself to pray for changes and to be reconciled to those Jesus wanted me to be reconciled to. I wrote out what i have to do to in the near future to be able to be a good witness when i do go to Japan and to take my faith more seriously. So this was an important step. I don't want to bore you with the details. It was an eventful night.
God told me awhile ago that many Japanese are not Christian because we are not good witnesses. How can a nation with a low crime rate and where people are polite and sincere, they cannot accept Christians who do not live an exemplary life. Of course Japan has numerous problems but they are first to point out our problems before theirs, it is human nature. Of course Christians are not perfect either but we need to take our faith more seriously and at least do the best we can. If Satan has a stronghold and lulls the people to think they are behaved, we who have the truth must be even more vigilant. If we look at the Buddhists who crawl on their pilgrimages in Asia, we who have the truth we just take a vacation to the Holy Land. Not just Japan, it is hard to reach Asia in general. I am not saying we are to crawl to Jerusalem but are we trying our best? I know that i haven't and that needs to change.
Roseline, I want to thank you for all your efforts. Hopefully, my group will grow and I will let the word out about your group in facebook. Let us all grow in the faith and take Jesus seriously.
Chauncey Gilbreath
September 14 at 5:38am
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At first it was difficult for me that night. There are seven people on my campus that have been to Japan and none of them came to the prayer meeting here where I live, but God is so amazing. He brought four people that have not been to Japan that wanted to pray for the Japanese. It was so neat to hear them cry out for the things that they had not seen. It was amazing to watch as the holy spirit lead.
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