Japan Mission Trip

From June 21 to August 3 the six of us will be heading out to Japan to work in the church in Tachikawa. I will try to get a weekly update here with photos and hopefully many prayer requests and praises. Check back every Saturday and see how the ministry is going and how God is working in our lives and theirs. Have a great summer! Updates to come!

Summer Break

.....summer break......
so far its pretty unlively....but in a month it'll get going especially bcuz of Japan!!! SO excited...a little scared but mostly excited. So yeah.....I've got music practice tonight, Bible Study tomorrow night, College Group on Friday, and Ultimate Frisbee at my friend's 16th birthday party....its gonna be sweet! I haven't played in forever.....fun times ahead....

AMAZING

WOW....
There are few words that adequately express the whirlwind that just passed me by (aka: my Freshman year of College)
Last semester I learned the importance of knowing that God is here but not always feeling His presence. Countless times I felt alone and so insignificant but I had to keep telling myself that God is here with me. God's comfort is so incredible and we are so undeserving of it; yet He chooses to bestow it upon us. Can I just say that I would not have gotten through this year without it?! Psalms has become my top 5 favorite books of the Bible; after Philippians, James, John, and Romans. I've learned so much about living

for God and not just half way but wholeheartedly. God is SO amazing and is so deserving of all our thanks, and praise, and everything in us. This may seem cliche but when you see His works in your life and see what He does it just comes naturally. The thing I learned this semester..sadly just this past week is that I am incapable of doing anything on my own strength. I don't know why it didn't hit me sooner but unfortuneately it didn't and now i must suffer the consequences, however because of God's strength I had an awesome week,

the finals went pretty well, they are now over (except one small on tomorrow morning...uh...today) and I have been able to spend some time with friends and it has been wonderful.
My roommate left tonight. Her side of the room is sad...depressing...empty. I guess its good. Time to move on. We'll still be friends but it'll never be the same. I'm never going to be able to have this time back but I am definitely grateful for what I learned from her and for what God is doing in her life. It was an awesome experience and I'm so blessed to have had experienced it. Now God is moving both of us in different directions and its going to be great!

This post has been brought to you by the scatterbrained Caitlin...until next time

The End of Freshman Year 2005/2006

I just finished my last official class in my Freshman year. We had dorm chapel today and heard different girls talk about this past year and what they've learned and struggled with etc. It was so humbling I guess to see that I am not the only with problems and people may be so happy on the outside but struggling so much on the inside. Girls have gone through so much this past year it makes my struggles look miniscule. I still thank God for what He has brought me through with family struggles and personal struggles. I just can't believe how much I have grown in my Faith and trust in God (that's not to stay by any means that I have it down now). I'm overwhelmed at how much I've learned in this one year. I can't imagine what God is going to teach me in the next 3 or 4 years. I don't even want to go there yet. I want to reflect on what He has taught thus far and just thank Him for He is Good! I'd love to share with you sometime what I have learned. Finals week is quickly approaching and this is going to be a week of stress but God is Good, God is Faithful and God is worthy to be praised!!!!!!!!!!!!

LAST FMP

Wow...
Last night was the last FMP class of the semester. We went over the travel aspect such as safety, health, packing, stuff like that. Team time was fun too cause we just got down to business and prayed and figured who'd be in charge of what as in supplies...when it gets down to this point you know you're going. I can't believe God has given me this opportunity to go to Japan after He already gave me the opportunity to go to Romania last summer. God has opened so many doors and led me down different paths that I never thought I'd even consider. He has really shown me His love, mercy, and grace and is showing me bit by bit what His will is for me and I can honestly say right now...I am so happy and at peace about so many things in my life. Last night I had a really good time just reading certain passages and each one just showed me different attributes of God and reiterates His faithfulness and sovereignty. I can't believe He has brought me so far.

FMP Retreat

So in February we went on a weekend retreat with our mission's class and we had to set up our camp, cook our own food with minimal supplies, hike and do a "team bonding" thing for two hours and then we had a council time with our individual teams where we went around in a circle and pointed out all the things we saw in other people that we thought should change. That was hard cause I don't like pointing out people's problems...i mean i do it but its not always right to do that. It was good though cause we all saw things that we all agreed should be worked on in each of us so it wasn't like certain people were ganging up on others. I think that really helped our team cause now we're pretty close. Its awesome! I have to admit I was a little scared about it but God has really blessed our team with unity and a closeness that's comfortable. THANK YOU LORD!
I LOVE TEAM JAPAN 2006!

FMP April 20- Missionary Panel

Today we had four missionaries come in and Tatlock questioned them about their ministry and advice that they had for short term missions--it was really quite interesting. Good to hear from their perspective.
Things like travel, food, housing etc. is really harder than it looks to us. They have to worry about finding places for teams to stay anywhere from 1-8 weeks in a summer. I think many times I forget to thank them for all their hard work...I mean I thank them for what I see them do, but I never realized how much work is put into the before and after. They have to arrange all that stuff and then they have to clean up and unfortuneately fix any problems that the team may have created. Sometimes we don't realize that what we think is helping could many times really be making their job harder and even compromise their ministry. Its so important that we listen to the missionary and make sure that what we are doing isn't going to cause problems because we are not only representing americans but more importantly representing God and if the people see us messing around they sometimes get the wrong ideas about the missionaries who are living with them. The worst thing a team could do is get the full time missionary in trouble. I guess what all this is really about it being a helper and making sure that we don't take for granted all that goes on because there are people who are working much harder than you and me to allow us to be able to go to that country and hopefully be of service to them. did any of this make sense?
Hope so...

Photography

Today (April 13 2006 class) was a fun. We got to talk about photography and how to make memories with good pictures and essentially how to tell someone about your trip and capture all the aspects instead of just how fun it was.
The basics were:

1 General purposes for missions trip photography

• Documenting what happened
• Remembering your friends
• Creating images for art

2. Two lists of specific photos to take

• General conference (event) photos
• Basic missions trip photos

3. What to do with the photos

• Slide show for church or Bible Study
• Web albums for people to see
• Banners for websites and promo material
• Small book to review with friends

There's more about how to take good pictures, what kind of camera to use etc but I've seem to run out of time and I must go....if you really want to know...post and maybe I'll share my secrets :-p jk...they're not mine.

Practical Training in Speech

Today we split up the teams and each of us went to a different mini seminar to learn about different aspects of the trips we will go on. Because we will most likely get an opportunity to share our testimony I went to a seminar about speaking. Betty Price came in to speak to us (LOVE HER!!) and gave us some handy tips about how to speak and make it about God and not about you basically.

The three main points were (I'm not going to go into all of it cause for 1 you're probably too interested and 2 there's a lot):

1. Your Character and Your Heart- The greatest impact of your speaking coms from who you are and your heart
2. Organization- Learn to put material in the form of an outline and to speak from a concise outline
3. Verbal Presentation and Communication ability- Be very prayerful about how God would use you to impact your audience so that they respond to God's truth that you are sharing.

I'm a very fearful person when it comes to speaking in public or in a large group but when I stop and remember that I'm not doing it so that they audience will like me or approve of me but that i'm speaking God's truth to them its much easier to do it.

FMP Definition of Culture

Culture is something we all have. There are many different cultures in America but there also numerous cultures outside America (I know shocking huh???)

1. Four components of culture

Economics: How do we produce and trade goods?

• People
• Time
• Materials

Religious: How do we explain the unexplainable?

• Beliefs Acts 2:5-13
• Practices Acts 17:19-23

Social: How do we preserve our cultural identity?

• Marriage and Family
• Education Acts 16:25-34

Social Control: How do we organize ourselves?

Rules:

• Reciprocity, Punishment Acts 4:1-22

Relationships

• Logic, shame, guilt Acts 21:27-36

2. Cross-cultural communication

Verbal

• High form
• Low Form

Language mirrors culture
Language is arbitrary

This probably doesn't make much sense but just remember to acknowledge the differences of our culture and respect other cultures because although we think so, ITS NOT ABOUT US!

I haven't been too incredibly diligent in my journaling as I said I would.
Anyway I'm just going to give a summary of the classes that impacted me and what we learned and some of the things we've had to read.

Starting with the very first class:

He went over the support raising including how to write a support letter (which my opinion is the worst part)....i hate asking for money. But I did it and now its over with and Praise God for that!

We had to make a donor list complete with addresses of people you don't even know who for some strange reason know everything about you. I was blessed to be able to send it to a select few who supported me last summer so I actually knew who I was asking. The major key though to support raising is trusting God that if you are meant to go..He will provide some way for it to happen. So....with all that said, here's a lesson from Paul:

Gifts from the Philippians to Paul:
In Thessalonica (Philippians 4:16)
In Corinth (2 Corinthians 11:8-9)
In Rome (Philippians 4:18)

The following observations from Philippians 4:10-20:

Paul was content (4:10-13)
The Philippians shared with Paul in ministry (4:14-16)
Paul sought blessing for the Philippians (4:17-20)
The Philippians gave to God (4:18, 20)
God will meet your need (4:19)

We need to be content with what we are given not wanting more because like I said, God will provide for you.
We like the Philippians should share ministry whether that means actually going out on the mission field or being partners in prayer.
We should be thankful for the support of our family and friends and pray for them.
We should remember that ultimately we are giving to God and helping those whom we support to be obedient to God.
And the most important thing that has been said over and over....GOD will meet your needs not people. God uses people to help you but do not depend on yourself of others to be your primary support. Only God can do this.