Gary and Naoko in Japan

Last night we had the graduation ceremony of the YWAM Tokyo DTS 2011! It was a wonderful night of celebrating what God has been doing over the past 5 months as well as celebrating the DTS students who came from all over the world in order to follow God and grow with him. It has been a real pleasure getting to know each of them and they will all be missed dearly! The DTS started just after the Tohoku Earthquake & Tsunami along with all the news of the radiation from Fukushima. The risks were made clear to the students before they arrived yet they still came, determined that God wanted them here no matter what! Since they laid down their lives even before coming, God has done some amazing things through each of them during their time here! And I am sure he will continue to guide and use each of them wherever they go next. My thoughts and prayers are with them! Some of them will be coming back as staff soon which is great! Now we just need that bigger building so we can house ev

Less than a couple of weeks ago I was part of a church plant in Tokyo which is really an extension of a church in Seattle called Cornerstone. Last night we had a service outside in a busy public area in Ikebukuro! It was a really fun experience and was cool to be able to worship God openly like that! Felt a little weird at first because of all the people watching us, but it was good in the end! We sang worship songs in English and Japanese and we also prayed and the pastor Phil gave a talk. The love of God was felt and he touched people's hearts! There were around 12 of us in total all worshipping together, with 4 people I've never met before! We all went to a nice pizza place after the service to hang out and get to know each other!