Camp Day 1

Today was the first day of Okutama Bible Camp. We spent the morning prepping for the camp and filling water balloons. It is very hot here so we felt that getting the students wet would help them break out of their shyness (Japanese children are very shy). The students arrived around 3 p.m. and have been running full throttle all day.

We had a large relay game which involved several water games and some silly ones. The youth seemed to enjoy it a lot. Afterwards we had dinner and chapel. The speaker for the chapels is a pastor of a Christian Church in Shonan which is north of Tokyo. Pastor Yamanaka graduated Lancaster Bible College in Pennsylvania, so his english is very good.

After the Chapel we had some pool games followed by small groups. In the small groups we discuss the chapel message and go over questions that pastor Yamanaka prepared. The discussions went very well. Many of the students opened up and shared the problems and dreams that they have in life. My small group has 2 christian boys who are very open about their faith and their testimonies have been a great help in getting the other students to open up. Please pray that God will strenghten the two boy's faith and that He would call the others to him.