Never in my life have I felt such a fire in my being for outreach, and a sense of clarity as to the direction I am to steward my life. That is the impact going on the Japan mission trip has had on me.

I don't have such stories to tell of praying over a person and their body is instantly healed, or sharing the gospel to a person and they decided to accept Jesus on the spot. Japan is a developed country whereby much of the people are not in any physical need – in fact, they are comfortable and feel as though they are fine on their own, without God. What I was able to observe during my week was a glimpse of God's heart for the people of Japan, and I got to experience how my being obedience (a small piece through the willingness to be involved), God utilises as part of the work he is already doing in someone's life (God invites us to be involved, and adds the small piece to the bigger picture).

One example of this, on the third day of the mission trip and day one of street evangelism in a local park – breaking off into smaller groups of twos and threes, my group was walking along, leaning on the Holy Spirits promptings, eventually coming across two elderly ladies. We were able to start a conversation. Moving on from pleasantries, we got to know a little bit more about both, they were 75 and 85 years old, they regularly enjoy going on walks like on that day, and the 85-year-old lady used to be a teacher. Making a connection to this, we had a Kanji Quiz pamphlet with us that we were able to use as a talking point to steer the conversation. The Kanji Quiz had a combination of characters, and to guess the new character formed when combined. The answers included the characters for 'love', 'righteousness', 'salvation', 'holy', 'believe', 'forgiveness', 'glory', 'kingdom', and 'home coming'. After playing through the quiz, we discussed with the ladies the significance of each character. That was the extent of which we were able to talk about the gospel before we went our separate ways, and I thought that was that.

Later, when everybody regrouped and shared their experiences – it so happens that one of our other groups had come across the same two ladies after us. With this other group, the conversation took off from where we had left with the Kanji and went deeper. The 85-year-old lady, the teacher, mentioned that she believes she has no sin, and therefore she does not need forgiveness. She goes on to say that hearing the gospel, she cannot just believe in it unless she has an experience. One of our fellow missionaries, Dani, was prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray for the lady's right ear – when asked, sure enough the lady was experiencing hearing problems in that ear. The lady agreed to be prayed for there.

Here I see that as God invites all of us to be involved, sometimes; we may be the ones who get to plant the seed, sometimes we may be the ones who get to water – God is the one growing. Experiencing this day after day, seeing God's heart for the people of Japan, how He is already beautifully there waiting for the people to see Him and come to know Him, I am extremely encouraged, and I feel God is growing my faith.

I believe that God has placed in my heart a desire for the people of Japan to come to know Jesus. I want to continue to be obedient, to use my God given voice in Japan for the Kingdom of God.