JCF Fall Retreat

At the beginning of October I went on my second Jet Christian Fellowship Retreat. It was over a three day weekend in beautiful Fukushima Prefecture, the prefecture directly north of Ibaraki. Our speaker was a Japanese Pastor from a church in Fukushima who spoke about "Being a Light" in Japan.


We shared the facility with several other groups because it was some kind of friendship center. There was a boy scout group, some sports teams, families and a large youth group from another Japanese church.

About 33 Jets representing 11 countries, from all over Japan attended. I recognized a couple of faces, but majority of the group this year were first years or it was there first JCF retreat. It was great meeting people from New Zealand, Jamaica, Singapore, Ireland, Trinadad and Tobago and different parts of the US. Met a girl from LA that went to Mt. Hermon camp in Northern Cal and a guy from Illinois who went to Northeastern University.


JCF Leadership team minus two people

Due to the type of place we were staying at we had to follow pretty strict time schedule. At 6:30am every morning each room was assigned a part of the facility to clean and at 7:00am sharp we had to meet in the gym for group exercises. All Japanese people know rajio taiso, its the exercise that comes on tv at 6:30am each morning and is performed at various schools across Japan. Our group caught on quickly and tried to be genki, even though some of us were still half asleep.


During the retreat we had several worship and speaker sessions, small group time, prayer meetings, workshops and game time. The worship team did a wonderful job leading praise songs in English and Japanese.


I was a small group leader and had three other girls in my group from Kyoto, Ibaraki and Fukui prefectures. We had good small group times of sharing and getting to know each other.

God really spoke through Pastor Toyomi. It was really exciting to hear about her faith journey and all the exciting things that are happening at her church. She encouraged all of us to be lights in Japan and share God's love and message of salvation with others around us.

Two stories from Pastor Toyomi's testimony that really impacted me...

On the first day she shared how she came to be the Pastor of Koriyama Christ Church. She went to Central Bible College in Tokyo and had a desire to be a missionary outside of Japan. She really wanted to go out and meet people from all over the world. One of her professors in college told her that if she wanted to be a missionary for God that she needed to stay in Japan and reach out to the Japanese people. Toyomi Sensei was really disappointed after hearing this, but knew it was what God wanted her to do. So she moved to Koriyama with her husband to work at Koriyama Christ Church. Today her church has an international congregation including people from Jamaica, India, US, England etc. God remained faithful and brought people from all over the world right to where Toyomi Sensei was in Japan! Pastor Toyomi speaks all at many different venues and her church is very active in serving the community.

On the last day she shared a very moving testimony about the faith of her young daughter that moved many to tears. When her daughter was a first grader she had a mean and strict teacher who never smiled. This teacher would hold up signs to signal the class to be quiet. Her daughter would come home and tell Toyomi Sensei that she didn't want to continue going to school because it was such a terrible place and didn't like her teacher. Toyomi Sensei visited her school and got the same feeling as her daughter, but told her she had to keep going. Her daughter became very persistent and came home from school one day and told Toyomi that she needed to come with her to right away to pray for her teacher and school. Moved by the sense of urgency and faith of her daughter, Toyomi and her daugher went to her school that evening and prayer walked around the building. She thought this would be a one time event, but her daughter wanted to continue prayer walking everyday until she saw God answer their prayers. They started walking at the end of October and continued walking until December.

One day after school as Toyomi and her daughter were prayer walking around school her daughter's teacher came out of school and saw them. When she asked them what they were doing Toyomi said they were praying for her, the students and school. The teacher was really moved and shortly after this brief meeting Toyomi's daughter saw a change in her teacher. Her teacher started smiling and stopped using the signs in class.

In a related story about 50 students in her daughter's grade were able to visit Toyomi's church. Along the lines of "Bring your child to work day" but on a slightly bigger level. Toyomi and her daughter walked hand in hand leading the group of students, some of their parents and teachers from school to her church. For many in this group it was their first time being inside a church and asked all kinds of questions.

The retreat was a great weekend of fellowship, fun and challenges and looking forward to the next one in Nagano in February!