At the beach
During Summer vacation Japanese love to go to the beach. The cars line the expressways on Saturday and Sunday and people don’t seem to mind sitting in their cars for 8 hours to get to spend 4 hours on the beach and play, trying to forget their daily life.
As our house church went to the beach for a baptism last month, people where everywhere along the beach as we searched for a place to baptize two new Christians. Children, who remember their own baptisms at the beach, frolic in the water and collect shells that resemble the ones they collected at their own baptisms.
At these times, just about every one who goes gets wet to one degree or another. The children who are with their families want to get in and wade around. The adults like to get their feet wet too.
We pray that as we gather and sing praises to God in the midst of these crowds of people that our actions and our words will become salt and light that will cause these people who spend their leisure time for self to realize their need for forgiveness of sin and salvation in Jesus Christ.
Also, we are praying that many other Japanese will have the opportunity to witness new Christians following Christ in baptism in the ocean at Kukujuri, Chiba.