Some things to pray for

• First of all, thanks for praying for my trip (if you did). Even though I went as an individual, God helped me rely on Him for strength and courage (which was a specific prayer request I had). I wasn't too scared when having to do public presentations, etc. And, even though it was an individual trip, I had a lot of interaction with people. It was a very fulfilling trip!
• Churches in Japan are so small. My church in LA has about 250-300 adults (and lots of kids). That would be a mega-church in Japan. In LA, it is just a medium size church. Churches in Japan are around 50 people. Budonoki church was about 70 people. When I asked the Korean couple how big their church in Tokyo was, they smiled and said "normal size!". But they are praying super-hard for their church and their faith is so... courageous. It is so nice to see that they don't get discouraged. I asked them how they avoid getting discouraged. The wife said "I enjoy my relationship with Jesus Christ every day". From the way that they responded, I just really admired their attitudes and their perseverance. I also was touched that, even though historically Korea and Japan have not always gotten along and there are some deep wounds, this Korean couple and their supporters in their church in Korea have so much love for Japan.
• Pray for more pastors to come to Japan and for more Japanese to desire to become pastors. The current generation of pastors will retire soon and there's going to be a shortage of pastors unless new pastors rise up. Being a pastor is not a glamorous job anywhere. But, especially in Japan where people are relatively rich, people have a hard time understanding why someone would want to become a pastor. You won't make a lot of money. Pray for God to provide.
• One of the missionaries commented that her and her husband faced some difficulty in getting some of the people in their home church to understand why they wanted to go to Japan. Some people think: "Japanese are rich. Why can't they just buy the gospel?" I guess I had kind of thought that way a little bit before too. But - the gospel is free. Even if they pour money into publishing Christian books and CDs and building pretty churches and getting the best missionaries - those things would help but... hearts are still not open and cultural barriers to becoming a Christian are still imposing. So... that's why we pray I suppose...
• I got to give a Japanese Christmas CD to a lady & her daughter who were sitting next to me on the plane ride home. I offered her a cough drop because she was coughing and then she struck up a conversation with me. Wow! If cough drops are that useful, maybe I should carry them around all the time! Due to language barriers, we didn't have a long conversation but her and her daughter were very sweet. I really hope God uses the Christmas CD. It shares the good news of the gospel and also includes the "Jesus" DVD. I feel like... who's going to share the good news of God's grace with this family in Japan? The probability of them knowing a Christian in Japan is much smaller than if they lived in the US or some other country...
• Pray for the church plant that Redeemer Presbyterian Church is doing in Tokyo. They are working really hard on the church plant. A Redeemer church plant in Tokyo is going to look different from Redeemer in mid-town Manhattan. Japanese are SOOOOO different from New Yorkers. They both ride trains. That's all the similarities I can think of. Oh, and they are workaholics. Ok. That's it. I pray that Redeemer can really build a strong church in central Tokyo, making the necessary cultural adjustments as well. Redeemer has done a lot of church planting so I'm sure they have a lot of experience. But I know they'd appreciate our prayers.