And so it begins...

It's currently 7:45am on the 13th here in Tokyo, which means it's about 3:45pm on the 12th back home. So weird! Anyways, my team and I arrived safely in Tokyo two days ago. God blessed us with an uneventful flight, efficient entry through disembarkation and customs, and a private van to take us to our apartment rather than having to brave the trains with pounds on pounds of luggage. We are now settled in Koenji for a few weeks until our long-term apartment building is completed early October.

Family on our last evening all together

With Tynan and my parents at LAX

Team at LAX

We met with some of the JCCC staff yesterday for an orientation and were actually able to go to a campus for a few hours of meeting students. We went to ICUHS, International Christian University High School. This high school ministry is one of the up-and-coming movements that God has recently really been blessing. They have a program called Let's Talk for students to come to and establish relationships as well as open opportunities for the gospel to be shared.

Please keep this ministry and the high school students involved in your prayers. While the high school and its sister university bear the name "Christian" there is actually quite a lot of persecution towards believers and any sort of evangelistic activity.

September 10th

BTW in case you haven't yet heard, my team and I are leaving September 10th!!! Please pray for continued financial provision as a few of my teammates are still raising support.

Radical Living out of a Suitcase

I have realized this week just how difficult it is to pack for a year abroad. I've lived my life in little places- shared a bedroom with my brothers for 5 years, lived in a sardine can of a dorm room for two years at UCLA, etc. A 250 square foot apartment in Japan poses a similar challenge. And since I will be dwelling in what Yahoo News (reliable source) deems the most expensive place to live in the world, it is hard to justify just buying everything over there at twice the cost.

All that being said, I'm learning how much I think I "need" certain things. How will I ever survive in Japan without blank?! I say to myself. What if I need blank and don't have it?! The world would end I'm sure.

Yea, probably not, you're saying to yourself. She's exaggerating as usual. You're right.

And yet again God is opening my eyes to idols I have, even such silly, benign ones as the desire to be prepared. When I try to pack everything and the kitchen sink in order to be prepared for every situation Japan can hit me with I'm taking away the freedom for God to provide for me. In Luke 9 Christ sent out the twelve with literally the clothes on their back. No clean underwear, no umbrella, not even a walking stick! Talk about traveling light.

Christ understood what a powerful distraction things could be from the work of the kingdom. By sending the twelve out with nothing he opened up the opportunity for their Heavenly Father to provide for their every need. It was a lesson in relying on God rather than their own human strength.

And later in Luke 9 Christ again addresses this idea of sacrificing comfort and possessions for his sake. The Son of Man had no place to lay his head. Those who follow him will be the same. Anyone who looks back before following Christ is not fit for service in God's kingdom. It's pretty intense stuff. And I've been wondering a lot why I was chosen. I'm scared to leave my home, my family, everything that is familiar and loved by me. And I'm definitely not going to Tokyo with just the clothes on my back. Let's just say the overweight luggage charge is going to be very happy to see me at the airport.

Anyways, I'm trusting God when he says he will be enough, he will provide, he will fill my every need whatever it may be. I believe the work I will be doing in Japan is worth the sacrifice and fear and unknown I'm currently facing. Eternity is a long time and I want my blink of an eye here on earth to be worth something in the long run. God-willing this year will be a step in the right direction, the narrow path towards Christ in all his glory.


With that all I can say is I'm a new fan of vaccuum-seal bags. They work wonders!

Peace

CoE- a beautiful acronym

CoE- short for Certificate of Eligibility and the magic words my team and I have been waiting and praying to hear the past few weeks. In order to get a visa allowing us to be in Tokyo doing ministry we have to have this CoE.

Praise God, this morning one of my team leaders texted me saying the Japanese Cru office had received our CoEs! They will be sent to us and hopefully be in our hands by Friday. After that we will each have to go to the nearest Japanese consulate, mine is in LA, and go through some process to get our official visa.

I'm still unsure about what sort of time frame we're dealing with as far as when we will be leaving for Japan, but this is a HUGE step forward! Thank you so much for all your prayers on our behalf in this process. God is so good to provide for us in this way.

Naperville, Illinois- STINT Briefing 2012

Jet-setter Quinn is back at home after a rather hectic week and a half! I spent a lovely, albeit brief, weekend in the Bay Area with some of my favorite people.

With a turnaround of about twelve hours, I flew home Sunday night and was off again Monday morning for Chicago. Technically the briefing was in a lovely place called Naperville, but we did make it into the Windy City for a little touring one day of briefing.

The girls in front of the Chicago Bean

The week consisted mostly of large group talks and smaller breakout seminars and team times. A really awesome band called Page CXVI led worship- I had never heard of them before but they are all about making hymns relevant again in worship. I was blessed by them.

Almost 400 STINTers were gathered for the week; students from across the States and going literally around the world. It was so cool to see such a diverse group of people and to know how diverse our experiences would be even as we go out with the same goal, to bring glory to our God. I met some new friends and am excited to see how the Lord uses all these brothers and sisters to further his kingdom.

With Brittany and Megan, both going to El Salvador, reppin' UCLA

With Daniel, from Cal Poly SLO

One of the highlights of the week was finally getting to meet my whole team in person. I roomed with three of the girls so we had some good bonding time, and we also had quite a few team times when we could talk about what ministry in Japan is going to look like. I knew three people coming in, but it was awesome to be able to put real faces and personalities to the talking heads I had seen online thus far.

Speaking of my team, we had some really bad news on Saturday. One of the girls on my team is no longer going to be coming to Japan. It was a huge shock for us and definitely put a damper on the week. Please keep her in your prayers as she tries to trust the Lord in this hard turn of events.

Tokyo guys at the commissioning

Tokyo Ladies at commissioning

Gold

Quick shout out to the USA women's soccer team for winning gold today! Since we are still happily living in the stone age without cable my family and I enjoyed the game at a local pizza parlor. Sweet victory!

100%

This morning I woke up to two e-mails from Cru giving saying I had received a combined $125 in monthly support overnight. I needed $126 monthly to be finished with support. It's been so interesting to see how detailed God is, he really does pay attention down to the dollars and cents. Once I prayed for $200 to come in overnight and woke up to $203.33. Today it was just a dollar short, perhaps as a reminder that he knows what I need and is fully capable of meeting it, I just have to trust that he can and will.

The remaining dollar of monthly support was quickly covered by the extra one-time gifts I had. With those $12 transferred over I was at the magical percentage- 100.

The feeling of being complete with support is hard to explain. I almost feel like one of the gold medal athletes who cannot say anything but "it's incredible, it's a dream." After several months of this process, to be at the end and be able to look back and see it unfold is truly incredible. At the beginning I had a lot of doubts. I knew it was possible with God's provision, but I would have been lying if I had really believed raising so much in such a short time was possible. Yet here I am!

This last $126 was a very specific answer to prayer as well. I'm flying to the Bay Area for the weekend to visit some college friends one last time before I leave. And then I will be heading to Chicago for STINT briefing with my team and all the other STINT teams being sent out. My extension deadline was the 12th so I was praying to finish before I left for the Bay so I could just enjoy being with my friends. The Lord heard me and knew my limits as far as handling deadlines and stress and he was gracious yet again. I am so blessed.

Anyways, I just wanted to celebrate this with you. 100%. Amazing!


The numbers:

57 appointments
203 phone calls
520+ e-mails, texts and facebook messages

92 financial supporters; 36 of whom I met at UCLA

and countless prayer supporters

= 100% of my support goal!