Hello from Tokyo!

Hello from the airport of Tokyo (Narita)! In regard to my previous blog entry I have decided not to write a whole entry for winter quarter and spring quarter. I can't really say that these quarters were very exciting, so I will hit a couple highlights and move on to the amazing things I am experiencing now. The first highlight I think is noteworthy is my time spent on spring break. I traveled with about 60 Ohio State Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) students down to Daytona Beach. We were hooked up with a pretty sweet hotel down there that is owned by a Christian businessman. It was on the beach and each room had a balcony to look over the beach and ocean. You might want to check out the pictures and video I took here. On the trip the students (myself included) were trained to share their faith, and then we went out on the beach each day and did just that. I came across a whole gamut of people, from old to young, walking Christians to atheists. I can still remember thinking, "Why don't I do this more often?" I've never run into anyone who wanted to bite my head off for wanting to share my faith with them, and in the process of sharing my faith I always feel closer to God. Sharing my faith is not something that I ever want to do by relying on my own wisdom. Instead I want to be completely dependent on God and His Holy Spirit to provide the words that those people need to hear, so while sharing my faith I am striving to constantly seek His direction and therefore I naturally feel close to God while I am sharing. I can't recall if I have mentioned this verse before or not on this blog but I will go ahead and backup what I am saying with some scripture.

"I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ," - Philemon 6

The Bible tells us here that sharing our faith with others gives a deeper understanding of what Christ gave us. The scripture also tells us,

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? " (Romans 10:14)

The Greek word translated in the NIV here as preaching actually literally means proclaiming. How can people know the gift of Jesus Christ unless we take the opportunities God gives to proclaim this truth? There is no doubt in my mind that the Bible calls all Christians to share their faith, with these two verses as simple defense thereto. So anyway, I definitely enjoyed this trip for the fun times I had with friends and the things He taught me. The other exciting thing that happened to me this school year is that I got to get involved in high powered rocketry. This was definitely a lot of fun and it didn't cost me a penny. You can see a couple pictures and videos of my rockets launching here (sorry I haven't had a chance to upload them yet). I'll leave it at that for now. Finally, to the part that I wanted to get to in the first place. I have just spent the past 5 or 6 days in South Korea with 18,000 students and staff involved with CCC from around the world. You can visit the website of this conference to see pictures, and video of our speakers' talks, etcetera at http://www.cm2007.net. While at this conference I have literally seen cultures represented from nearly all the nations in the world. I have seen Africans in vibrant robes, ancient Korean musical and dancing performances, and countless other people groups from around the world. I think one of these biggest memories that I will take away from this time in South Korea is the Korean Christians at this conference. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met; they are extremely polite and considerate. But beyond their social kindness, they are the most fervent prayers I have seen in my life. Period. There is no question that these people are talking to someone holy when you hear one them praying behind you. Their devotion to prayer is truly inspiring and humbling, frankly they make American prayer look like whispers to a distant God. This is probably one of the biggest lessons I will take away from this conference, that my prayer life has a lot of room for growth. I want to share something else that God has taught me here while spending time with Him alone, but I think I am going to do it in another entry because this entry is plenty long enough as it is. From here on out I think you can expect frequent updates, though they may not be lengthy like this one because I should have relatively easy internet access in Venezuela. Please, if want leave your thoughts about anything I have said here, click on the link immediately below this entry to do so. I will try to respond quickly if appropriate. Also, expect pictures and video soon.