The afternoon began with the long awaited visit to the onsen. For the guys that meant Gary, David and me. It was a great time of relaxing and getting to know each other better and soaking in some kind of chemically enriched water.
While we were in the onsen, this bright young university student came in and sat next to me. We had a great conversation and I met him again in the park adjoining the onsen where he was with his mother.
I had a hard time at first believing that she was really old enough to actually be his mother. His Japanese name was Joey; this was the first time I had met a young man with that name here in Japan. Joey seemed quite interested in trying out his English so I introduced him to Mosese.
This evening we also went to a church in Sendai started by the FCBC church in Singapore. We had visited this church on one of our earlier Tohoku prayer trips so it was good to renew fellowship with them again. The pastor was very kind and very happy that a YWAM team was coming to Sendai. We discussed ways that we could work together with him and his church in the future.
Here is Gary with one of the church members whose connection to YWAM goes back to the Ome days. She remembers welcoming the McDaniel family when they first came there many years ago. Her family went to Grace community church along with Sakura and Satsuki Smith.