Wow!
Just wow~!
How great is our God hey? I mean, it's been an entire month and we started our first prayer meeting on Wednesday evening, November 5th with a grand total of 3 individuals. I do have to say, I feel a bit like the proud parent of a newborn! Haha!
General Report:In the space of two weeks, we went from one meeting a week to two meetings a week and finished off November with a grand total of 7 prayer sessions. We've also grown from a meager start of 3 individuals to 10 individuals in attendance over the course of our two designated prayer nights. While some of us manage to attend both nights, not all are able to. However, the fact remains that we've had up to 10 people showing up in various combinations to pray during the course of a two session week. Something I'm sure we can all agree, is just great! Certainly many more than I imagined God would send to our new tribe in its first month.
The Tribe:To supply some insight into the international flavor God has begun pulling together on this prayer team; we've had in attendance:
2 Americans
1 Australian
1 German
2 Japanese
1 Korean
1 Taiwainese
This is truly starting off as a house... for
ALL nations!
Holy Spirit Buzz:There have been several email inquiries and networking opportunities into the "Tokyo HOP" thing. Some of which were in response to the "we're getting started" email I sent out to the mailing list in October. Others were from word of mouth and fliers we passed out during one of the Saturday Night Fellowship gatherings (a house church group.) A few that came from other online applications and networking circles. It's great how news travels when you are plugged into God's network. How wonderful it is to be surprised by Him every day.
Family:We have become the sister HOP of
The Altar International House of Prayer located in Meadville, PA; USA. While this is not officially official, it is "official" if you know what I mean. There is still lots of paperwork and research to be done but we are very much headed in that direction.
THANK YOU ABBA! And yay!
Name Change:We will also be changing our name from "House of Prayer, Tokyo" to "The Altar International House of Prayer, Tokyo." Yay! How exciting is this?
Future Website:On that note, I've been doing research and planning for our future website and I am happy to say things are coming along reasonably well. As the site is still very much in the planning & initation phase, it will be awhile before it's up and running. I think though, the blog is working well at the moment and there is no need to rush this.
Prophecy:In one of our most recent sessions, one of our team members was led to pray for the government & leaders of Japan. While in that stream, I ended up prophesying
there will be a Minister of Foreign Affairs who will meet Jesus and make a national public delcaration of this faith change.
It is not known however, whether this is the individual who currently holds this title or one who is yet to come. The timing is all up to God. Additionally, I personally do not know if the current Minister of Foreign Affairs is male or female. In all honesty, it doesn't really matter male or female, now or later. Heck, for all we know, it could be for several Ministers of Foreign Affairs! :-) We all know, what matters is God moving on the hearts and minds of the people in this nation be they in the halls of government or halls of day care centers.
Creative Solutions to Doing HOP in Japan:In lieu of a Skype chat/discussion with one of our prayer team members just last night, we are going to look into scheduling sessions with mini-prayer teams(2-4 per group)via
Skype at intervals during the week. This is a great solution to the "we do not have our own building to meet in" challenge and also works well with the commute time/distance/cost challenge which those who are living in and around Tokyo face. I think this may be a very creative answer to prayers asking God to establish the HOP, Tokyo and also show us how to effectively use the resources we already have access to.
If you are not able to join our Wednesday or Thursday night prayer sessions but would still like to be a part of the action, please contact me and I will see about setting up some remote "Skype prayer teams." Email: jagracey@cba.att.ne.jp
Prayers Please:In prayer, we can use all the support we can get. Members of our team have been experiencing (in varying degrees) such things as intense headaches, sickness, extreme sleepiness, interestingly timed relationship difficulties and more chaotic than usual work days since we've begun to meet.
This is pretty common demonic reaction and interference over here. It is really a battle of will and endurance for some of our team members to attend the sessions. This is true for those who are and who are not yet fully aware the source of those previously mentioned manifestations.
Basically, the moment people begin to gather to pray here, things are set in motion to discourage and prevent that from happening. Understandably so since every word we speak in prayer is like lightning striking from the sky. It's all good though- you've gotta learn to love the battle to be in on this fight hey?
Prayers for endurance, disernment, divine strategy, God to bring His designated and appointed tribesmen to our camp, financial provision, supernatural grace & wisdom for the leadership and really what ever else comes to mind. If you think it, we could use prayer for it. :-) We aren't picky! (hee hee)
Funding the Kingdom:Finally, if anyone feels led to support the HOP, Tokyo financially I'd like to share a few immediate needs with you:
1. Printing fees for the HOP info. fliers and other basic documents are about $20 USD or 2,000 JPY per 100 sheets of A4 size paper.
2. Round trip train fare to Tokyo and back from my home is about $24 USD or 2,400 JPY. To attend each session of the HOP (2 sessions a week x 4 weeks) it's about $200 USD or 20,000 JPY a month in commutation expenses.
3. A high quality USB port compatable IC voice recorder (with English directions and buttons) so we can start recording some of our sessions and transcribing prophecy and other important things that transpire. The devices are somewhere between $200-300 USD or 20,000-30,000 JPY.
4. Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly support of any capacity for staffing and basic operations/administration costs of running and setting up a ministry. Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities in the world and the costs involved with doing anything here are higher than average.
If you are outside of Japan, please contact either
The Altar International House of Prayer (refer to link for address & contact information) or myself directly.
If you are inside of Japan, please contact myself directly via email: jagracey@cba.att.ne.jp
Grace, glory & fire,
JG
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