All is well with my soul (and foot!)

Hi everyone back at home!

きのう、LAでトレーニングをして、日本語をたくさん練習しました！準備ができています！

Yesterday was a looooong day of training and preparing in LA, SoCal. We spent our time bonding with our teams, learning about Japan, making a conflict resolution covenant, studying the Bible, and packing away gifts, food, and craft supplies.

In particular, we studied Colossians 3:1-17 to find how God wants us to work together as Christians in a team. The passage contains many commands and asks us to take off our "old self" of sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, and to put on a "new self" like clothes of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. These attributes and behaviours are how God wants our teams to interact. Most importantly,

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:14)

Teams that are driven by love are teams that work together best and are able to resolve any conflict. Our teams created our own covenants based on this passage in Colossians and found practical methods to confront conflict. I wish I knew this before my third year in university. The business school this year emphasized heavily on teamwork through 48-hour reports and 24-hour reports. Although I experienced both "successful" and "unsuccessful" team processes, I feel that if I had approached the group work with God's love as a priority, each project would have been successful.

I wanted to share this old hymn with you because of how I felt before leaving home. I didn't feel at peace with God a few days before leaving, mostly because of personal desires that were battling God's desires. Letting go of things I wanted selfishly was one of the hardest decisions I had to make but I knew it would not be good for me! I didn't want to use the Japan trip to help me ignore the issue, because then I would be going to Japan for the wrong reason. So after much prayer, I decided to give up this burden of temptation to God. WOW, did that give me so much joy! I finally felt at peace with God so I could focus on how to serve Him best in Japan. My mom was practicing this hymn on the piano that night and I couldn't help but join in and sing with her because all was truly well with my soul! There was so much peace in my heart when I fell asleep and I had the best sleep ever.

What I learned from this was how important it is to listen to God when He talks to us. It is rare to find that God will talk physically or audibly nowadays, but He uses methods that speak loudest to us. In this case, my troubled conscience and sleeplessness was the Holy Spirit tugging on my heart. He was saying, "Justina! You know there is something wrong and you know what's right! I'm letting you make your own decision and I will love you no matter what choice you make. However, I want you to make the right choice so you can better understand my love and receive my blessings so much more." God is really the perfect parent!

In addition to this victory, I have another reason to be grateful! Some of you may have heard, but the morning before I was to fly to LA, I twisted my foot badly. For some reason,  (much to the inconvenience to my parents), I always wonderfully injure myself before leaving for something important, such as a competition or first year of university. I had to hobble on my foot all day to run errands and even attend a dance class. By the end of the day, it was all swollen, purple, and quite painful. The next day, I rushed around to see a doctor, get an x-ray, and pick up anti-inflammatory pills. God helped me get on the plane on time but when I arrived in my first stop in Toronto, my foot was still causing me to limp. However, after the 5 hour flight to LA, the swelling had gone down by a lot and I didn't have to limp anymore. It is much better now and could only have been a miracle from God!

fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

I realized that praying a lot and trusting God would be in control was all that was needed, and God would take care of the rest. :)

Along with these praise items, please continue to pray for:
- my foot to heal fully and no more injuries
- something unknown that caused my right eye to be puffy last night and unable to wear contacts
- a safe 12 hour flight to Japan today and smooth time zone transition
- our team to continue bonding and growing in God together

ありがとう！

Love,

J