Little pieces of grace sprinkled throughout the day

So officially the summer "rush" has started for us here in Ishinomaki. Interns have flooded in and teams are coming(and have already came). As much as I have tried to work at preparing for the summer and everyone coming it doesnt ever seem like I am prepared enough. Yesterday, I was fighting all day the weariness that I quickly had discovered last summer that comes with the awesome craziness. It was amazing though how much God showed His grace throughout the day. Two particular stories I would like to share:

1) If anyone knows me semi-well you will find out quickly I am very adamant about not shoving the story about Gods grace into peoples faces. Yes I believe in Jesus and the Bible but I also believe God works through relationships and through the Holy Spirit. It is not up to me to make sure I have shared about this awesome story to every person I meet without first having some basis to our relationship.

While this is the case I do long to share with people I come in contact my reason for being and living.

God gave me this opportunity on Saturday at our weekly community cook-out event. One lady K-san who attends my weekly afternoon English class came up to me and wanted to practice our weekly memory verse. In attempt to try and connect better with her I had been learning the verse in Japanese. Well we proceeded to practice for each other the verse in both English & Japanese:
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
愛は何によって測ることができるでしょう。 友のためにいのちを投げ出すこと、これ
より大きな愛はありません。

There was a pause and K-san looks at me and asked me why did you choose this verse?(Amazing!! I understood her question!!) So in broken Japanese I explained how I read the bible every day and through that my relationship in Christ grows. That gives me peace to face each day. Her face just lit up with understanding and she was excited to hear that. We then got interrupted by her grand daughter so the conversation ended. But the whole experience was amazing. We grew closer together through it and I believe she grew in her understanding of God.

2) The second experience of Grace amongst a wearying day was going on a spur of the moment hike with our summer interns and some co-workers here. It was a gorgeous day and we had a couple of spare hours at the end of the afternoon so we met up and explored the mountain overlooking Ishinomaki. The mountain is covered with shrines to various gods. This saddens me every time I go up there. Why worship some statue that we make instead of worshiping the Creator of the mountain??

Anyways one of my co-workers suggested we stop and have a small study of a bible verse, then we sang and prayed. It was amazing! At one point I was looking around at all who were there and I saw how amazing God's grace was at that moment. That He would take us all from where we lived around the world and brought us together at this time to sing to Him praises on a mountain covered with false idols. 

Pretty amazing dont you think? :)